City�s young talent makes into international research on COVID-19
Jamshedpur: A new category of bio-medical waste has emerged after the outbreak of novel coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). The isolation wards, institutional quarantine centers, and home quarantine are generating a large volume of biomedical waste (BMW) worldwide on daily basis since the pandemic outbreak.
This potential threat of COVID-waste has been disclosed in an international research article accepted to be published in Science of The Total Environment on the topic �disinfection technology and strategies for COVID-waste management�. In this context, one of the main contributors to the entire workout, Dr. Rajiv R. Srivastava, a native of steel city Jamshedpur shared some important findings with their team collaborators. Notably, his father himself is a veteran medical practitioner Dr. U. K. Srivastava, resident of Jugasalai.
Talking about the published article on COVID-waste management, Dr. Rajiv tells that to-date there is no specific medicine available and except the Russian vaccine, the hunting for a vaccine candidate is on. Prevention is the only effective way known to us. However, we are maintaining social distancing and asked to wear protective items. It is very pity that the infected/suspected persons are considered to be a carrier of the vector disease, but certainly, there is very less focused given on the contaminated used items thrown inappropriately along with the daily household waste. Not only the common people but this negligence is also in practice by many hospitals/healthcare centers.
He added that effective management of COVID-waste including their proper disinfection is necessary to control the mass spread of pandemic.
On the telephonic conversation, the task leader Dr. Sadia Ilyas who is a Brain Pool scientist at the Jeonbuk National University (JBNU, South Korea) tells about the timely importance of the research article as the number of people infected with novel coronavirus is drastically increasing day-by-day.
The group leader from JBNU, Prof. Hyunjung Kim tells about his concerns on the topic that the world will soon overrun by COVID-waste and the outcome of this glut will have a deep impact on sustainable waste management practices in the coming years. In this context, the South Korean model can be a panacea to follow for the prevention of adversity caused by inappropriate handling of the emerged waste, where the guidelines are very clear and strictly followed by the workforce dealing this pandemic as the front warrior.
Talking about the emerging technology developed under the support of National Research Foundation of Korea, the Brain Pool Scientist Dr. Sadia Ilyas told that the waste materials are the important source of critical metals that can be recycled from the urban mines. Due to a significantly high weight fractions of critical metals in the discarded waste volume are mostly several-folds greater than that of the weight fractions occurring in natural mineral reserves. Not only the recovery of critical metals for minimizing their supply-risks but also due to the environmental conservation, the recycling of urban mines is imperative.
