KOZHIKODE: The one type of waste that makes everybody queasy and the city Corporation yet to find a solution for is the mounting sanitary napkins. After Kudumbashree workers stopped collecting used sanitary pads along with the other waste, the women are in a quandary as to how to dispose them. In spite of the Corporation recommending that institutions, residents associations and apartments use the sanitary napkin incinerator, none of them have started using it, making hostel inmates and other residents to worry.
Swarna Ramachandran, an inmate of one of the city’s prominent hostels, said, “Items contaminated with blood and body fluids including cotton dressings, soiled plasters, bedding are bio-medical waste and should be incinerated, autoclaved or microwaved to destroy pathogens. But in Kozhikode city we have no provisions to do any of these for more than three months since Kudumbashree workers stopped collecting used sanitary napkins. I have started stocking it in my flat here and take it back home where I burn it. This is the pathetic situation I face.”
With the addition of blood or faeces, disposables have become dangerous for a city Corporation to deal with. “They cannot be humanely handled by garbage collectors, they contain a cocktail of materials including cotton, a super absorbent polymer and a whole lot of plastic,” said Corporation Health Standing Committee Chairman KV Baburaj. He added that talks were being held with leading incinerator companies for incinerators to be installed within Corporation limits so that Kudumbashree workers could collect napkins again. According to the women here, they either wrap soiled pads in paper and throw them along with domestic garbage or flush them down toilets. But recently hostel wardens and apartment in-charges have strictly warned people not to do so, and therefore they are stuck.
