Reportedly for the past two weeks, the ghmc garbage collectors at Dasaram Basti at SR nagar have stopped collecting plastic bottles and other materials over the fear of contracting COVID-19, “We are afraid. What if the plastic has been used by someone who is infected? If one person falls sick at this slum the whole slum will fall sick,” says Nagamani, a Greater hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) garbage truck driver and a resident of the slum.

 

Nagamani keeps his distance from outsiders who visit the slum. “Please stay one meter away,” he insists as he fetches the overused face mask from his garbage truck. Since the 21-day lockdown began, the residents of the 140 homes at the slum are an anxious lot. “People throw masks and latex gloves in the garbage and they end up in the slum where we segregate the waste. We have stopped collecting such items,” he says. 

 

It was on march 18 that the pollution CONTROL BOARD' target='_blank' title='central pollution control board-Latest Updates, Photos, Videos are a click away, CLICK NOW'>central pollution control board under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, issued guidelines for handling, treatment, and disposal of waste generated at hospitals by COVID-19 patients. The pollution Control Board (PCB) in telangana says the same guidelines can be used by municipalities to instruct garbage collectors to handle garbage. “The guidelines are for everybody, including the waste collector and those transporting and handling the waste. The waste has to be incinerated. We have circulated the guidelines to all districts asking them to implement the guidelines for waste disposal, not just for COVID-19," said murali Mohan, Chief Environmental Scientist, (PCB). Other wastes used masks or gloves from non-quarantine households should be treated as domestic hazardous waste wrapped in a separate wrapper, collected and transported separately without mixing with normal household waste.

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