Editorial | The disposal of face masks and medical waste is a crisis in the making

 An insufficient number of the type of incinerator needed to destroy such waste has heightened the risk of the infection spreading, while the environmental impact of improperly discarded face masks poses a further threat. As the disease rapidly makes its way around the world, other governments are being confronted by similar difficulties and need to promptly come up with solutions.

Masks and other protective gear used by infected patients and the medical staff treating them should be sterilised and incinerated at high temperatures in dedicated facilities. Although the number of incinerators used for such waste in mainland China is not made public, experts believe it has been largely unchanged for the past decade.

 Making the problem worse, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment last year said that most of the facilities, built in response to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) epidemic in 2003, were nearing the end of their operating lifespan. There are dangers that the coronavirus will be spread to garbage collectors and others if waste that may carry the infection is not handled properly.

The huge amounts of clinical waste being produced dramatically heightens the risk. Wuhan, the city of 11 million people that has been the focus of the disease with 75 per cent of all the nation’s deaths occurring there, is reported to have produced 200 tonnes on February 24 alone, four times the amount the city’s only dedicated facility is able to handle each day. The nation generated 2 million tonnes of medical waste in 2018, but has yet to put in place a specific pollution control standard for its disposal.