Use app to monitor COVID-19 biomedical waste, SC to civic bodies

News: The Supreme Court has made it mandatory for all municipal corporations and state pollution control boards to use the ‘COVID19BWM APP’ for tracking biomedical waste daily.

Facts:

• COVID19BWM App: It is an application launched by the Central Pollution Control Board(CPCB) to track biomedical waste.
• It allows a generator of waste (urban local body in the case of home and hospital); the picker of the waste (transport of the ULB) and the waste treatment operator to feed in data so that COVID-19 biomedical waste can be tracked and monitored.

Additional Facts:

• Biomedical Waste: It comprises human & animal anatomical waste, treatment apparatus like needles, syringes and other materials used in health care facilities in the process of treatment and research.
• CPCB: It is a statutory organisation constituted in 1974 under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act,1974.
• Further, CPCB was entrusted with the powers and functions under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act,1981.It also provides technical services to the Ministry of Environment and Forests of the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act,1986.