New Delhi: An investigation conducted by iamin has found that more than 40 factories in Narela Industrial Area of North West Delhi are involved in recycling biomedical waste.
Iamin correspondent conducted the investigation after getting information from the sources.
Biomedical waste need to be handled carefully and disposed of after being dispatched from the hospitals. By recycling biomedical waste, these industries are playing with the lives of people in the country.
Experts say that biomedical waste is highly infectious and toxic and cannot be recycled, but tonnes of biomedical waste such as used syringes, needles, medicine bottles, small bottles used for collecting blood samples, tubes and many such products made of plastics are being recycled at these factories at Narela.
The recycled plastic biomedical wastes are further processed in the industries to produce disposable plates, glasses, ice cream cups, toys and many such products of daily use. Not only the recycling of biomedical waste is illegal, but it's life threatening as thousands of healthy people, particularly kids, using these products can get serious infections.
In every states, separate authorities have been assigned to take care of the work of disposing such wastes and in no case it can be recycled or reused.
iamin also took experts' view on the matter and the doctors informed that recycling of biomedical waste could pose serious health issues.
"Every hospital has a separate department that takes care of the disposal of biomedical waste. The whole process is carried out with utmost care as there is always a high risk of infection from these products. Precautions should be taken while handling them by using mask, gloves and the whole body needs to be covered. In no case these waste can be recycled," informed Dr. Akhilesh, resident doctor at a government hospital.
The labourers working in these factories are most vulnerable to the threat of infections as they are in direct contact with these highly infected wastes. Iamin visited one of the factories in Narela Industrial Area and found the workers separating the wastes from the huge piles without adopting any precautionary measures. They were seen touching the needles and blood stained bottles directly with their naked hands. But sadly most of them are ignorant about any threat as they are illiterate.
An average of 15-20 labourers work in a factory. Maximum of the labourers working in these factories are women who are local residents.
“Since these biomedical waste had been used to treat patients suffering from different types of diseases and infections, labourers who are in direct contact with these wastes are always at threat of being infected from communicable diseases like rabies, tuberculosis and HIV,” informed Dr. Abhilasha Sharma, an MBBS.
The owner of factory no. 1667 in Narela Industrial Area which has been carrying out this illegal processing for quite a long time admitted on record that this whole work of recycling biomedical waste is illegal. He also informed that there are more than 40 factories in Narela Industrial Area alone which are engaged in recycling business and all of them use huge quantities of biomedical wastes.
Now the question is if there are strict regulations regarding the biomedical waste management and disposal, how and from where are these factories getting these life threatening raw materials for their industries?
The driver of a truck delivering the consignment of biomedical waste at one of the factories informed that he brings such wastes from neighbouring states Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on a regular basis.
