Medical wastes posing health hazard
(Yahoo!India News)
http://in.news.yahoo.com/061208/54/6a4z3.html

By Chennai Online
Saturday December 9, 12:32 AM

Coimbatore, Dec 8: After the Tamil Nadu Government has managed to bring PDS rice smuggling to neighbouring Kerala under control to a certain extent, police now face a different sort of problem. Truckloads of medical wastes are being dumped, particularly in and around Pollachi area.

Quoting some villagers of the area, police said medical wastes are being dumped in lorries on roadsides in the wee hours, when people are asleep, causing health hazards.

The same problem was faced some while back, with used chemical and blood stained cotton, glucose bottles, disposable syringes and tissue and other wastes being dumped in the area Villagers started keeping vigil in the area and managed to detain some trucks. However, the drivers managed to escape under the cover of darkness.

Villagers then resorted to a road roko to draw the attention of the authorities to the issue, following which police issued a warning recently against dumping of wastes.

In a fresh incident, villagers of Medarathi near Pollachi, detained a lorry carrying medical waste on Wednesday. However, the driver managed to escape, abandoning the vehicle, police said.

based on the complaints lodged by the public, police are keeping strict vigil on the border areas, to prevent dumping of medical wastes into Tamil Nadu, they said. (Agencies)