Poison in the drawer – Proper pharmaceutical waste disposal reduces environmental pollution risk, 200 tonnes from Serbia to be burnt in Vienna

As early as today you should have a look at your stock of drugs whose shelf life expired and take them to the first drugstore and reduce the risk of polluting water, soil and food with poison from your drawers. All drugstores, both private and state-owned, are obliged to accept waste, it was said today in Belgrade upon the official start of the Week of Pharmaceutical Waste Collection with the message: “Do not postpone disposal”.

Every day during the campaign, which will last from October 28 to November 3, citizens can bring and dispose of the drugs with expired shelf life from their home drugstores in front of Usce Shopping Mall. A promotional installation with three containers for pharmaceutical waste disposal was installed and expert staff will take over old medicines from citizens.

Health Minister Slavica Djukic Dejanovic pointed out today that if medical waste was thrown in trash it was very likely that it would easily return to the environment through sewerage.

- This project is extremely important because of the health of all of us. It is not only because of invested EUR 13 mil but also for the fact that quality medical waste disposal from health institutions entered the systematic stream. Some 5.000 medical and non-medical people employed at health, veterinary and pharmaceutical institutions went through education. Contents which educate future health staff on how they should behave have already been included in the high school programs – Djukic Dejanovic said.

health minister disposes of old drugs

Head of the EU Delegation to Serbia, Michael Davenport, also pointed out that proper medical waste disposal was a big challenge for all of us.

- In Serbia, this process has significantly developed during the past six years. Cooperation of EUD and the Serbian Ministry of Health resulted in Serbia’s increase in infective waste treatment from 30% in 2009 to 80% in 2013. It is know that in Serbia every house is like a small drugstore but throwing away drugs with expired date to garbage and its disposal to landfills presents a health risk. Medical waste is disposed on soil and penetrates water current, threatening to enter the chain of nutrition.

Jan Gerrit Tesink, manager of the Technical Assistance for Medical Waste Treatment in Serbia project, is positively surprised with the project success.

- When I came to Serbia in 2010, I was not even dreaming about this project being so successful. Stocks of medical waste in some health institutions were 40 years old and were more than 300 tons. Not all of them resulted from bad waste management but a large part of it was humanitarian help sent with the best intention but inadequate for final consumers. Their shelf life was expiring soon after they arrived to Serbia, if not even before that - Jan Gerrit Tesink explained.

As he stated, one of the project results is the fact that 300 tons of collected medical waste is ready for incineration in Vienna.

Green economy

(Photo: ta-hcw.rs)

Proper waste collection and treatment is important for environmental protection but it can also be a convenient source of profit, Gordana Misev, an advisor at the Ministry of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection claims.

- Waste treatment enables green economy which implies new hires as well as ecological consciousness development. Amendments to the Law on waste management and revision of the Strategy on Waste Management are important documents in this field. In the world, waste does not end only on landfills but there are elements of waste which can be used in industry – energy, electricity production, biomass – Misev said.

As Misev explained, new regulations of local self-governances imply not the plan adoption but the fact that until 2014 they should already have waste separation implemented.

- We have been discussing this for a long time and at the end we acquired good practice examples implying that for a start, two containers for dry and wet waste are sufficient.

"Do not postpone disposal"

The "Don’t postpone disposal“ is being implemented within a long-term project „Technical support for medical waste treatment in Serbia“ whose objective is development of the overall medical waste disposal and management in Serbia in line with EU standards. The project totaling EUR 6 mil is funded by EU through the support of the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection and the Veterinary administration.

M.K.