KARACHI, Nov 24: The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency and the City District Government of Karachi have joined hands to check the hospitals responsible for unsafe or careless disposal of hazardous waste.

According to sources in health and environment circles, a majority of the healthcare units neither segregates infectious material from their waste nor practice environmentally safe methods.

The solid waste management department of city government had served repeated notices to the errant hospitals and clinics asking them to install their own facilities for safe disposal of hazardous waste or subscribe to the CDGK’s paid facility at Mewashah to get it done.

A solid waste management official said such notices exerted no impact on the errant hospitals as the CDGK had no powers to penalise such health institutions. Ironically, none of the hospitals controlled by the CDGK has its own incinerator, neither they are ready to pay money to the waste management department for safe disposal of hazardous material.

“This shows how hapless we are in netting these institutions,” the official said. He said works and services department that controls the SWMD had taken up the issue with the health department but the imbroglio was too hard to be dispersed.

The gravity of the situation forced the CDGK to get the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency along for the job. “We have prepared notices that we will initially send to a few dozens of major hospitals including the ones being run by the CDGK and will take on the rest later in sequence,” said the official.

The hospitals will be asked to apprise the SEPA of the practice followed by them for the scientific disposal of hazardous waste.

While no confirmed figure of hospitals and clinics functioning in the public and private sectors in the city is available, the department maintains that only 140 healthcare units have been depositing their waste for collection, transportation and disposal through the CDGK incineration plants at Mewashah. Only a few hospitals, including two in government sector, maintain their own incinerators for the purpose of scientific disposal.

According to a conservative estimate, said an official, about 1,250 healthcare centres generate 12-ton waste daily. A little over two tons is incinerated at different plants. Ten tons waste having 20 per cent infectious material is thrown into the designated or undesignated sites elsewhere in the city.

For the safe disposal of hospital waste, CDGK’s two incinerators at Mewashah have a capacity of 10 tons per day.

The metropolis generates about 8,000 tons of municipal and about 1,000 tons of commercial/market waste. Around 40 per cent of the combined quantity is collected and dumped at landfill sites by different agencies.