Coronavirus: China struggling to deal with mountain of medical waste created by epidemic
- Lack of treatment facilities brought into sharp focus as tonnes of discarded face masks pile up around the country
- Many specialist incinerators were built during the Sars crisis and are now on their last legs, experts say
How to deal with discarded face masks, which number in their millions or even billions, is another headache for Chinese authorities already caught between containing the viral disease and limiting the economic damage caused by it.
The country’s inadequate medical waste treatment capabilities have also been put under the spotlight, environmental experts said.
Environment and health authorities say masks and other protective gear, especially items used by medical personnel and people infected with the coronavirus, should be treated as clinical waste, and sterilised before being incinerated at high temperatures at dedicated facilities.
While it is difficult to get an exact figure on the number of discarded masks, it is reported that the volume of medical waste in Wuhan, the city in which the epidemic began in December, had quadrupled to more than 200 tonnes a day last week, according to mainland Chinese media reports.
As demand for surgical masks soars around the world, Chinese manufacturers are producing about 116 million a day, a 12-fold increase over the past month, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planning agency.