The Bio-medical Waste (Management & Handling) Rules notified in July 1998 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, make mandatory for all healthcare facilities irrespective of their size to treat bio-medical waste generated by them. In order to comply with the provisions of the Rules, some of the healthcare facilities have installed their own treatment facilities and others are availing services of Common Bio-medical Waste Treatment Facilities (CBWTF). CBWTF are widely accepted by healthcare facilities and are increasing in number continuously because of various advantages such as reduced capital investment and treatment cost, easy implementation by the regulatory bodies etc.

There are 126 CBWTF, including 13 under installation, in the country as on March 2005 as compared to 85 the previous year. In order to help CBWTF operators in complying various provisions of the Bio-medical Waste (Management & Handling) Rules and other minimum requirements such as efficient treatment equipment, required infrastructure, proper transportation system, proper recording system, environmentally sound method of disposal of treated bio-medical waste etc., Central pollution Control Board has prepared "Guidelines on Bio-medical Waste Treatment Facilities" and the same have been circulated to all SPCBs/PCCs and also displayed on website for dissemination. Further, to assess the compliance and working of existing CBWTF, CPCB has initiated a study through Zonal Offices of CPCB to evaluate the performance of all CBWTF in our country.. Upon completion of the study, findings of the study would help deciding action/policies required to be initiated for further improving operation of CBWTF.

Common biomedical waste treatment facilities (CBMWTF) have been set up in various cities for treatment of Bio-medical waste generated in various hospitals, nursing homes, medical establishments etc. In North Zone mostly private operators have established 28 CBMWTF. The state wise breakup is as below:

Uttar Pradesh : 14 (3 presently not operational, 1 under installation)

Punjab : 4

Harayana : 7

Himachal Pradesh : 2

Jammu &Kashmir : 1

Out of these, 8 common facilities were inspected by Zonal Office-Lucknow during the year 2005-06. Common facility specific observations of the facilities inspected by ZO Lucknow are given below

In central zone, eighteen CBWTFs have been established. Out of eighteen, thirteen are operating in Madhya Pradesh, three in Rajasthan and two in Chhattisgarh (as on March, 2006). CBWTFs are having incinerator with other supporting facilities like autoclave, shredder, chemical treatment, deep burial etc. The details of CBWTF visited in Central Zone, the water generation and gas emission characteristics are presented in Tables below.

The Common Biomedical Waste Incinerators Stack and ETP(s) were monitored in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. In addition sixteen hospitals were also inspected in Kerala under this project. The results obtained in concern with flue gas analysis are tabulated below.

CPCB has carried out the performance evaluation of 06 out of 12 in Maharashtra and 03 out of 19 CBMWTFs in Gujarat.

The Agra city generates about 2 MT of biomedical waste daily. The Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board has identified 214 units in Agra, which have also obtained consent / authorization, however gross violation in the segregation of waste at the source is the main aspect of BMW management. The common biomedical waste treatment plants at Agra were visited because of gross violation of norms in the operation of plant.

The common biomedical waste management facility at Mathura was also inspected and observed the non-compliance of the norms, with respect to (a) inadequate space (b) inadequate infrastructure to comply with the guidelines (c) sharing of the premises with another industrial unit (d) carrying out agricultural activities in the premises (e) without any security arrangement (f) non-operation of ETP etc. The closure of the units has been recommended to UP Pollution Control Board.