Abstract:
This study investigates the present COVID-19-related medical waste generation scenario and suggests a
way forward from the perspective of lower-middle-income countries like Bangladesh. Bangladesh is a
densely populated vulnerable country in the perspective of the COVID-19 induced biomedical waste
management field. The pandemic COVID-19 has already created enormous instability in healthcare waste
handling and subsequent recycling around the world. The medical waste management sector in
Bangladesh is struggling and COVID-19 makes the situation even more complicated. A rigorous timeseries calculation was done to determine the facemask and medical waste load during COVID-19 in
Bangladesh from March 8, 2020, to September 13, 2021 period. Results showed that about 1,58,10,400
pieces of facemask are disposed of alone in different urban areas which is equivalent to 517 tons of solid
waste while extra 5,203 tons of biomedical waste is added every day to regular waste streams during this
pandemic. The findings of this study suggest that these extra tons of hazardous waste threaten the
aquaculture of the country and promote the risk of contagious diseases to the waste workers especially
women and as well as at the community level. The findings also reveal that this pandemic has already
created a hindrance to achieving the country’s SDGs by 2020.
