Experts estimate that on an average, a hospital generates 100g of plastic waste every day per bed – from surgical gloves to saline bottles, IV tubes, syringes etc. Once used, discarded, sterilised and shredded, this fetches Rs 5 at Rs 50/kg from a recycler and when sold illegally and repackaged, each item finds its way back to the market with a total price tag of Rs 75-100 – almost a 20-fold spike.
Discrepancies in state government data point to glaring gaps in the way waste is treated. Consider these:
Asked about the discrepancies in data and the mismatch between the number of hospital beds and the quantity of waste generated, West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) chairman Kalyan Rudra referred to the authority’s official website “for necessary details” and declined to comment further.
But those numbers did not go unnoticed. The CAG’s Audit Report (General & Social Sector) for 2017-18: “WBPCB (West Bengal Pollution Control Board) was intentionally understating and manipulating the BMW (bio-medical waste) generation figure to make it appear that all generated BMW was being treated before disposal.”
That was the year Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016 was notified and the CAG had reasons to believe that the WBPCB was striving “to avoid a negative portrayal of the State” with figures “understated at least by 49.52 per cent” given the bed strength.
Experts point out that given the average quantity of bio-medical waste generated from a hospital bed in India — 286 grams in 2022 — Bengal’s 168,323 hospital beds in 2023 were likely to generate an additional 5 tonnes of hospital waste daily.
A former member of the state’s pollution control board said that it’s “difficult to quantify how much hospital plastic waste is sold untreated” for reuse. “Some of the unrecorded waste is perhaps dumped with the general waste due to a lack of awareness or care. But by any estimate, at least 15 tonnes of plastic waste is generated in Bengal’s hospitals. If even half of that finds its way back to the market, the money involved is substantial and the risk posed is grave,” said the former official.
A retired official of the state Health department acknowledged that “enforcement was lax” from their side, too. “So many healthcare facilities simply threw away their waste. Ten years ago, we did not have enough waste treatment plants either. But what the CAG perceived as a problem of low capacity has turned into a time-bomb of high corruption. Today, the quantity of hospital waste is understated in government records because it is being sold illegally at the source,” said the retired official.
According to experts, plastic waste is immersed in sodium chloride (1%) solution for a few hours at a waste treatment plant. Then it undergoes “autoclaving” — exposure to high-pressure steam at 120 degrees Celsius for half an hour or so. Only then is shredded to be sold to recyclers. “Grey marketeers simply wash it clean before repackaging, posing serious health risks to unsuspecting users,” a government doctor said.
The grey market is also the reason why the real business of bio-medical waste is suffering. “Hospitals pay a fixed ‘per bed per day’ rate for disposing of waste — anything between Rs 8-9 in West Bengal. Private hospitals negotiate and pay a lot less. So the revenue model depends on the plastic component of the waste – roughly one-third by weight — which rarely reaches the plant. So they miss out on roughly 100 gm of plastic per bed per day which would fetch Rs 5 — at Rs 50/kg — from the recyclers. That way, they are losing 40-60% of their bona fide revenue,” said an executive in the hospital waste business.
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