Waste capacity can cope with virus

China has sufficient capacity to ensure the timely disposal of medical waste and sewage generated from COVID-19 epidemic control, an official with the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said.

As of the end of last year, the annual disposal capacity for medical waste in the country was 2.15 million metric tons, up by 39 percent from the end of 2019, Ren Yong, director-general of the ministry's department of solid waste and chemicals management, said at a news conference on Wednesday.

In addition, the country boasts an annual emergency disposal capacity of an extra 2 million tons, he continued.

"Currently, almost 70 percent of areas listed as either medium or high risk for COVID-19 have had less than half of their daily disposal capacity used," he noted. "So, we have managed to dispose of all medical waste on the day it was generated."

The ministry has asked local governments to be prepared to put their emergency disposal capacity into operation. "Such capacity must be capable of being activated at any time," he stressed.

According to the Sichuan provincial environmental authority, the province has ramped up its efforts to tap the potential of existing waste disposal capacity to help tackle medical waste.

It designated 35 incineration facilities for domestic waste disposal, as well as five facilities for hazardous waste disposal, as a backup, which has increased the province's emergency medical waste disposal capacity by 952 tons a day.

To date, a total of 169,100 tons of medical waste have been disposed of in Sichuan since the COVID-19 outbreak, of which 17,900 tons have been related to virus control.

Ren said the ministry has established a dynamic work mechanism that adjusts on a daily basis in accordance with the COVID-19 control situation, to help areas listed as being at either medium or high risk.

Aside from getting all medical institutes involved in epidemic control under environmental supervision, the mechanism ensures that all medical waste and sewage are collected for concentrated disposal, he noted.

He said sewage treatment capacity in medical institutes and urban sewage disposal plants is generally able to meet demand and everything is running as normal.

Under the ministry's guidance, local environmental authorities have strengthened supervision over all sewage disposal facilities in hospitals, locations used for quarantine, and sewage disposal plants, he said. The authorities have urged immediate rectification of any problems found.