A high power committee for management of hazardous waste set up by the Supreme Court has found Bangalore to be one of the trend setters in south India for hospital waste and health management. In a recent decision by the Supreme Court, the need for a national committee on waste management has been upheld where both industrial generated debris and hospital waste disposal methods are seriously been looked into, according to Prof. M G K Menon, former advisor to government of India in science & technology. He was inaugurating the recently concluded first-ever annual two-day conference of the Indian Society of Hospital Waste Management [ISHWM].

The meet, which focused on 'Systems Development for Safe Management of Health Care Waste-The need of the Hour', highlighted the principal concern of Supreme Court which was the import of hazardous wastes into the country, mainly heavy metals like zinc, lead and oils.

Prof. Menon summarized the report of the Committee and said that the situation was serious because the hazardous bio medical waste materials have an impact on health.

"The critical aspect of hospital waster management is education, awareness and training. It has to be built into the medical education system," informed Prof. Menon.

Pollution should be prevented at its source. Hospitals have to see that they sort out the wastes generated and not dump them. Prof. Menon said that government could not get into disposal of bio-medical waste management and socially aware individuals/entrepreneurs should help decentralize the waste management system.

According to the report by the Committee, bio-medical waste management is not uniform all over the country. Only two major cities in south India -Bangalore and Chennai have adhered to the disposal of bio-medical waste in a scientific manner. In Patna, 90 per cent of the hospitals have no waste disposal systems and dump liquid wastes and human organs in the rivers that supply water to the city.

Dr. AB Malakaraddy, minister for health and family welfare, government of Karnataka in his concluding remarks of the meet said, "In terms of waste disposal, Karnataka is fulfilling only 20 per cent of its responsibility as most of the incinerators that the government has provided to the state are not working."