Can I hand over the general waste of the hospital to the municipal authorities?
Yes, you can but only if you have segregated it at source and it is not contaminated. Remember, even food waste can be contaminated. So, if you suspect that any kind of waste is contaminated and infectious, first treat it appropriately – not just routinely but make sure the waste is actually decontaminated and no longer a health hazard. Thereafter, you can hand over the same to the municipal authorities. Normally infectious waste cannot be so easily decontaminated within the healthcare establishment and that’s the reason the common facility operator picks up your infectious waste and transports it in a safe way to an offsite facility and treats and decontaminates the waste. However, if your HCE is remote and has been allowed to have onsite facility / facilities to properly decontaminate and treat the different kinds of wastes generated in your HCE, then you can hand over the ‘treated’ hospital waste to the municipal authorities for secured land filling and to recyclers for recycling.
