Tehran's City Council passed on Tuesday the general principles of a bill on modifying the system of collecting and disposing of special waste in the capital.
Special waste is a waste that requires special handling and disposal methods, which in this case includes medical, industrial and agricultural refuse.
Based on the bill, which was approved with 11 affirmative and 3 negative votes, the costs of collecting special waste material will rise and the Waste Management Organization (a subsidiary of the Tehran Municipality) is tasked to report to judicial authorities any case in which such sort of waste is not separated at source, IRNA reported.
The cost of collecting and transporting hazardous hospital waste is set at 4,400 rials per kilo in the proposal and sanitary dumping of each one kilogram of the materials, which should be performed according to the guidelines, would cost 4,800 rials.
On Wednesday morning, each USD traded at 97,600 rials at the official rate.
For those materials that have already been treated into harmless substances, the cost would be 2,000 rials per kilo.
Moreover, industrial and agricultural waste will be collected and transported for 1,600 rials per kilo.
It has also envisioned a fee of 18,000 rials for disposal of special waste by incineration once a central plant is established by the Health Ministry, the private sector or the municipality.
Municipality's Task
The Tehran Municipality is also tasked with issuing bills for producers of special waste, collaborating with the state radio and television and other relevant institutes to raise public awareness about the threats of non-separated waste, training the WMO's staff and establishing legal procedures for prosecution of violators.
Reza Abdoli, managing director of the WMO, said during the session that management of medical waste is the Health Ministry's responsibility but is now carried out by TM. "The Department of Environment has announced that none of the capital's hospitals make their waste harmless before disposal," he complained.
Nevertheless, according to him, TM has set aside 41 vehicles for collecting this sort of waste, he added.
The municipality has no precise data of the volume of medical waste generated in the capital but has identified 7,000 producers including 164 hospitals, laboratories and surgeries.
"Out of these 7,000 centers, 2,600 have contracts with the municipality for waste collection," Abdoli said.
Also speaking at the event, Mahmoud Mirlohi from the plan and budget department of TM set the volume of hazardous waste in Tehran at 150 tons per day.
Zahra Sadr-e Azam Nouri, head of the environment and health commission of the City Council, explained that the municipality is responsible for managing normal waste and special waste has to be managed by its producers.
"The TM will only collect this stuff after they have been made harmless," she said.
