Medical waste disposal plan unveiled

China unveiled a plan for medical waste disposal on Wednesday, vowing to establish a system for waste collection, transportation and disposal in each of the country's counties by mid-2022.

Jointly drafted by 10 central government bodies, including the National Health Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the document was made public as the country's disposal capacity for medical waste still lags behind demand from medical institutes and the public's expectation, according to a media release from the commission.

"The capacity for concentrated disposal of medical waste fails to meet the need. The management of infusion bottles and bags is confronted with difficulties. The medical institutes are overburdened by the cost in disposing the waste," it said.

The document demands medical institutes sort their waste into three varieties - infusion bottles and bags, medical waste and domestic waste - and dump, collect, store, transfer and transport waste accordingly.

It pointed out that domestic waste produced in the treatment of patients with infectious diseases will be sorted and disposed as medical waste.

While asking cities above prefecture level to build at least one facility for concentrated disposal of medical waste by the end of this year, it stipulates that all counties across the country should build a system for medical waste collection, transportation and disposal according to local conditions by June 2022.

The country will encourage the development of mobile or preprocessing facilities to help remote areas to dispose of medical waste locally. Meanwhile, it also will explore a coordination and compensation mechanism that could facilitate cross-regional concentrated disposal, it said.

The plan was published against the backdrop that local authorities in Central China's Hubei province are scrambling to cope with the rash of medical waste produced in the battle against the deadly COVID-19, a disease caused by novel coronavirus.

According to an earlier media release from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, a total of 187 metric tons of medical waste, including 125 tons related to the epidemic, were generated in Hubei on Feb 11.

The province would have failed to dispose of the waste in a timely manner if the ministry didn't dispatch mobile disposal facilities to the province while enhancing its existing capabilities, which increased its daily disposal capacity from 180 tons before the epidemic to 317.5 tons by Wednesday.