In Chennai, discarded face masks on roads etc creating problem now
Posted on: 18/Apr/2020 10:41:57 AM
It is very important to cover the face with face masks to prevent Covid-19 infection. Just few days back, Corporation Commissioner of Chennai, Mr. G. Prakash made it clear that wearing face masks is compulsory while going out. Point is after using the face masks many persons throw them on the roads and in dustbins etc. Many complaints were received regarding this.
It is now said that GCC had streamlined the household segregation and collection of this bio-medical waste (face masks). As per some sources belonging to GCC, every day 1 to 1.5 tonnes of used masks, gloves and other biomedical waste gets generated in the corporation limits. To those persons under home quarantine, yellow bags have been distributed.
It is worthy to mention that home quarantine persons must hand over the wastes in bags to the conservancy workers who collect the wastes at the doorsteps.
On 13th April 2020, Chennai Corporation released a data and as per the data there were as many as 18,990 homes under homes quarantine and out of these as many as 11,129 had finished mandatory 28 day isolation. At present, as many as 7861 homes are under home quarantine.
It must not be forgotten that from 12th April 2020, GCC had devised a two pronged strategy for the quarantined homes persons as well as for the non quarantined homes persons.
Point is those in quarantined homes must segregate bio-medical waste in yellow bags whereas those in non quarantined homes must keep the biomedical wastes in a closed bin separately from other household garbage.
Important information collected is both these categories of persons have been advised to disinfect used masks, gloves and other waste with ordinary bleach solution( 5%) or sodium hypochlorite solution of 1%. There are some residents who dump their biomedical wastes on the roads and on the dustbins and this was according to some officials.
