China’s Covid mass testing regime is creating a sea of medical waste

Blanket screening is posing a new challenge, leaving behind a trail of used test kits, face masks and personal protective gear that need to be disposed of properly

The trash is being generated at a scale ‘practically unseen in human history’ and the strategy is also an economic burden for local governments, experts say

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Health workers carry swab samples taken from locked down residents in Shanghai. Photo: AFP

Published: 4:38pm, 20 Jun 2022

Hazmat-suited workers poke plastic swabs down millions of throats in China each day, leaving bins bursting with medical waste that has become the environmental and economic levy of a zero-Covid strategy.

China is the last major economy wedded to stamping out infections no matter the cost.

Near-daily testing is the most commonly used weapon in an anti-virus arsenal that includes snap lockdowns and forced quarantines when just a few cases are detected.

Mass testing is leaving bins bursting with medical waste. Photo: AFP

From Beijing to Shanghai, Shenzhen to Tianjin, cities are now home to an archipelago of temporary testing kiosks, while authorities order hundreds of millions of people to get swabbed every two or three days.

Mass testing appears set to stay as Chinese authorities insist zero-Covid has allowed the world’s most populous nation to avoid a public health catastrophe.

But experts say the approach – a source of political legitimacy for the ruling Communist Party – creates a sea of hazardous waste and a mounting economic burden for local governments who must plough tens of billions of dollars into funding the system.

“The sheer amount of medical waste that is being generated on a routine basis [is] at a scale that is practically unseen in human history,” said Yifei Li, an environmental studies expert at New York University Shanghai.