ISLAMABAD: While more than 90,000 kg of recorded hospital waste is properly incinerated every month, a huge quantity of hazardous waste is finding its way to sites and creating both health and environmental risks, said the Pakistan Environment Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) on Thursday.

“Some of these health facilities have conceded that they had no clue how and where to dispose of hazardous waste and are throwing it away at open municipal dump sites,” said Pak-EPA Director General Farzana Altaf Shah, conceding that there were no recorded figures of how much hazardous hospital waste was being dumped in the open.

As many as 170 health facilities such as hospitals, pathological laboratories and dispensaries are operating in Islamabad, which dump infectious waste such as syringes, drug bottles, removed plaster and human anatomical parts and non-infectious waste with municipal throwaway. Most of the hazardous waste is also being disposed of into sewage, she added. Over the years, hospital waste management (HWM) has emerged as one of the major environmental hazards in Islamabad. Realising the issue, Pak-EPA undertook a survey and collected data from hospitals, pathological laboratories and clinics regarding their practices on HWM. The environment regulatory body found all hospitals mixing hazardous waste with municipal waste. All such facilities, determined in the survey to have poor HWM standard operating procedure, were served with notices.

However, in an exercise that started after December 2016, notices were served on all health facilities to dispose of hospital waste in compliance with environmental laws.

“Nearly two dozen health facilities have started sharing data of the amount of waste they generate every day and the recorded figure is 90,000 kg a month. While most hospitals and laboratories have started complying with environmental laws, Pak-EPA will soon have more accurate data of waste generated daily by each and every health facility. Those still violating the law have been issued reminders of strict legal action,” said Ms Shah.

According to her claim, after the exercise most hospital waste was now being incinerated at the National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC) in Rawalpindi.

Ms Shah said some health facilities such Shifa International, Pakistan Air Force Hospital and Capital Hospital had their own incinerators and were disposing of 2,000 to 3,000 kg s infectious and non-infectious waste daily.

Ms Shah conceded that Pak-EPA was not operating 100pc and that a lack of resources, especially shortage of staff, was one of the main reasons for the slower pace of work.

“We continuously request the district administration for assistance to help the environment watchdog enforce laws under the Environment Protection Act 1997. However, assistance seldom comes,” she added.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2017