Secondary collection for household biomedical waste

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will organise a secondary pick-up of the household biomedical and sanitary waste from all dry waste collection centres (DWCCs).

Without the secondary pick-ups, the household biomedical and sanitary waste gets mixed up with other dry wastes and ends up in landfill sites or partially picked up by biomedical agencies from the DWCCs.

Now, the BBMP plans to put in place transport and scientific disposal of such waste and has called for tenders.

"Right now, secondary collection of biometric and sanitary wastes is available only for institutions. We need to set up the same for households. The DWCCs will remain the drop-off points for the household biomedical wastes. They need to be picked up from there and handed to biomedical agencies for scientific disposals," a top BBMP official said.

The city produces nearly 40 tonnes of biomedical and sanitary waste each day. The corporation began a pilot project from 2015 to 2017, telling the households in all zones to segregate wet, dry and sanitary wastes.

The Plaice’s garbage collectors carried separate bags to collect biomedical and sanitary waste deposited at the DWCCs, from where agencies authorised by Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) would pick them up.

“The agencies worked for free at the pilot stage. Following the successful pilot, we wanted to implement it, but it was delayed due to various reasons. We now wanted to do it now by paying incentives to the agencies,” said Hemalatha K, Executive Engineer, BBMP (SWM).

"It's the responsibility of the households to segregate the waste. We instructed the citizens to separate the waste when we began the pilot project. Now, we need their support. They’d get motivated if the BBMP has the system in place. Now, we’ve it in place and the project will succeed," Hemalatha added.