Biomedical Waste Management in Visakhapatnam with Future Perspective

Visakhapatnam is a very fast growing city heading towards metro status and is also enlisted by PM of India as a smart city. Visakhapatnam�s urbanization process has been alarmingly fast making it a challenge for the state government to provide the much needed infrastructure. Of the many challenges that Visakhapatnam face, biomedical waste management is one of the critical issues. Biomedical waste management has recently emerged as an issue of major concern not only to hospitals, nursing home authorities but also to the environment. The entire practice of bio medical waste management was being carried out unsupervised. Lack of proper monitoring and regulation, hazardous bio medical waste are mixed with non-hazardous waste, making the entire waste hazardous. Such hazardous wastes because of inappropriate disposal/ treatment strategies are potentially infectious and present a potential hazard to public health and the environment. Effective and efficient waste segregation systems should be developed and implemented. Information with respect to risks involved in biomedical waste management practices have to be disseminated for public and general community.