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Challenges and Practices for Effectual Waste Management During COVID-19


Affiliations
1 Department of Chemistry, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra 136 119, India
 

Environmental issues have been growing due to the increased use of plastics and follow-up waste generation during the COVID-19 pandemic. To protect the patients, public, healthcare workers and waste management workers, many plastic protective gears are being extensively used throughout the world. These result in an unexpected increase of virus-laden infectious waste that needs to be mana­ged properly. Moreover, during this pandemic period, single-use plastic is also bounced back which could deteriorate our waste management processes. These factors are overwhelming the current waste treatment facilities and the health authorities are making a lot of efforts to ameliorate the waste management process. In this article, information on generated waste, guidelines issued by various countries, and challenges and practices for safe disposal of infectious waste is provided to mitigate such waste management issues in future.

Keywords

Healthcare Workers, Infectious Waste, Management and Disposal, Pandemic.
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  • Challenges and Practices for Effectual Waste Management During COVID-19

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Authors

Simran Ahuja
Department of Chemistry, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra 136 119, India
Sanjiv Arora
Department of Chemistry, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra 136 119, India

Abstract


Environmental issues have been growing due to the increased use of plastics and follow-up waste generation during the COVID-19 pandemic. To protect the patients, public, healthcare workers and waste management workers, many plastic protective gears are being extensively used throughout the world. These result in an unexpected increase of virus-laden infectious waste that needs to be mana­ged properly. Moreover, during this pandemic period, single-use plastic is also bounced back which could deteriorate our waste management processes. These factors are overwhelming the current waste treatment facilities and the health authorities are making a lot of efforts to ameliorate the waste management process. In this article, information on generated waste, guidelines issued by various countries, and challenges and practices for safe disposal of infectious waste is provided to mitigate such waste management issues in future.

Keywords


Healthcare Workers, Infectious Waste, Management and Disposal, Pandemic.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv121%2Fi10%2F1281-1287