New Delhi, Aug 4 (IANS): A decentralised biomedical waste incinerator installed at the Buxar Municipality, Bihar, was inaugurated virtually by the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, K. Vijay Raghavan, from here on Wednesday.

The waste incinerator would be useful at a time when the problems associated with handling and disposing biomedical waste are exacerbated due to the Covid-19 pandemic in small towns and villages that do not have access to central biomedical waste treatment facilities.

This is a pilot project with portable, forced draft incinerator capable of handling 50 kg per hour of biomedical waste with the provision of waste heat recovery. It can process waste made of cotton, plastic, or similar materials in a batch of 5 kg. The unit requires a 2 sq mt area and only 0.6 kWh electricity for initial ignition of the waste with an option of auto electricity turn-off.

The technology is developed by Ganesh Engineering Works and was selected through the Biomedical Waste Treatment Innovation Challenge launched in June 2020 by the 'Waste to Wealth' mission, a release from the Department of Science and Technology said.

"It is very heartening that Ganesh Engineering, a startup based in Buxar, has been able to develop a decentralised biomedical waste incinerator. I would like to thank the Buxar district administration for their help and cooperation," Raghavan said.