sentence, but they will be very embarrassing for she, jimmy chinese rights activists living in the capitol say they've been visited by authorities and want to stay silent during the olympics. within the bubble, the i always see says, athletes are free to express their views outside of formal events or ceremonies. but organizers say those who break chinese louis with behavior or speech that is, it gets the olympic spirit will face certain punishment. katrina, you al jazeera, they ting ah hello again. the top stories on al jazeera brush. i was condemning a u. s. decision to send more troops to eastern europe that kansas turkeys president had to care to hell. try to ease tensions over moscow's military. build up of the border with ukraine, and now there are concerns. renewed military conflict would create a humanitarian catastrophe,

affecting millions of people. yanna gland is the secretary general at the norwegian refugee council. he told us about the conditions many are facing in the region. i have no travel up and down the conflict lines, the front line for 3 days along the line on both sides. there are 2000000 people within 20 kilometers on either side. among them. one 3rd or more are elderly. in many of the displaced that we are serving are the majority are and billy. so i have this image of freezing miserable poor pension s sitting and watching this military political game. and a rocky arm group has claimed responsibility for flying 3 drones and united arab emirates, aerospace. they were all shot down because the nation has recently blocked several . miss allen drone attacks by humans,

food the rebels. new zealand is announced the phase reopening of its border. it's been largely closed for almost 2 years under some of the world's toughest corona virus restrictions. at least 12 people, including 7 children, are reported to have been killed in a u. s. lead operation in northern syria. an al qaeda affiliated fighters believed to have been the target in the town of osman is live province. the pentagon confirmed us special forces that conduct a counter terrorism mission. in the rebel controlled area. there were no american casualties. the u. s. says the serious and sudden brain injury suffered by diplomat stationed overseas, were probably caused by post electromagnetic devices. and intelligence panel has been investigating the cause of the symptoms known as have syndrome. does the headlines more news at the top of the hour? that's after inside story. thanks for watching. bye bye. the latest news. they've been extremely hot and for 10 years they was the britons. and i just wanted to

check with detailed coverage warnings, that overgrown and practices thrown power, large partial providers, the polygon deputy here from around the world on house people, years of living on the street actually accelerates the aging process. the saving lives during the pandemic. but tons of discarded surgical gowns mosque the medical waste up and loosing our environment. so what can we do to prevent an ecological disaster? this is inside story. ah hello and welcome to the program. i'm and as of a parent em disposable masks gloves. surgical gowns,

just some of the medical items which would become part of our daily lives since the pandemic began 2 years ago. but march of the protective personal equipment a p. p is made up of single use plastics that can't be recycled and have to be disposed of carefully. the world health organization says all that medical waste is hazardous to our health and to our environment. protective gear, syringes, vaccine vials and chemicals end up and landfills. and waterways, the w h o is urging all countries to improve their medical waste management. one of the really important findings is that we found that cobra 19 has increased health care waste loads in facilities to up to 10 times current volume. and we, you know, if you consider that $2.00 and $3.00 healthcare facilities in the least developed countries, didn't have to segregate or safety treat waste before the pad that make you can

just imagine how much burden this extra weight load has put on health care workers on surrounding communities, especially where waste is burned with the release of dock phones and fear. and well, as we mentioned earlier, it has been an enormous amount of medical waste. since the pandemic started, the w h o report found most of the 87000 tons of personal protective equipment ordered between march 2020 and november last year ended up as waste the environmental group oceans asia estimates. nearly 1600000000 mosque went into our oceans and 2020. the massachusetts institute of technology says the pandemic could create up to 7200 tons of medical waste every day. and a study from the university of portsmouth found mosque letter increased by 9000 percent and the 1st 7 months of the pandemic. ah, well let's bring in august now in new delhi is them land through jaw and

environmentalist, and founder of switcher, and non profit environment organization in bay root is the as a be shakita founder of sita, an environmental that's an environment, an industrial engineering firm. they are developed the necessary technology to treat waste and an answer to them. we have you opt of re is a science medical journalist who's covering the pandemic extensively. a very warm welcome to all of you and mr. giles taught with new and new delhi with named just a few examples of the impact that we've seen. medical waste have on the environment . but how much would you say that coven 19 medical waste has had on waste management systems? so we have to understand that we base and or c biomedical based in general has short term medium term, a long term impact on ecology and therefore on human health and public care. right now in case of india, we've actually seen no,

there's almost doubling or biomedical beast in certain areas. we've seen a very inefficient management of biomedical based. but that's been happening that you only have it on $200.00 centers that actually are supposed to be treating biomedical obese in that sense. and, you know, imagine a country off almost so you know, a 1000000000 and a half people and really 200 centers to really teach obese. so it's a very huge problem, very actually addressing the immediate corporate problem and then the very, very trying to protect ourselves. but in the process of protecting ourselves immediately, you're actually creating an intergenerational crisis and ecological crisis and a public health crisis. and that's where we've seen there are several visuals coming from different parts of the country. where there are, there are leaps and mounts off of garbage all around and the garbage and ought to

be. and we know that in india, those mounds of garbage existed long before the pandemic began. if i can come to the abbey shaka, you know, they're really 2 issues that we're looking at here as one is the bio medical ways that the pandemic has created. is it being disposed of correctly? and then the massive amounts of waste that has been created. because of the pandemic, whether it's hazardous or not, how much of the clothing 19 medical waste, you know, that's being produced? would you say, is recyclable? well, in principle, if you follow good management practices, so everything is arguably your main obstacle lead is that you are dealing with a huge influx, a huge volume and where you have hospitals that are in charge of some of this waste being produced. and the other big trunk is the regular residence i, i, i know for a fact that masks and gloves all joe, you know,

when the damn exploded, everybody were thinking that you could get and submitted by touch and it survived on surfaces. so everybody was, it was abusing disposable gloves and you have the masks, or all of these are plastic or plastic materials. and in principle, they are recyclable. we have developed technologies to recycle these. the problem is, can you really properly channel them to a recycling centers or not? and that is, and that is what the conversation today is about from name the yeah, i can see that i'm not sure if you were disagreeing. they with the adobe shack, and i will come to you in a 2nd. but just before i do, i want to bring up the visa in here, because it's been nearly 2 years since the pandemic began. it's a pandemic that you have covered extensively. why do you think that the w h o has

brought out this report at this time? while the issue has been raised before by several institutions, but it's, it's not a coincidence, i guess, because we are in many parts of the world moving from the more acute face of the all these different ways that we're very acute. all of them into what they call the endemic states. in other words, we're getting used to having the fibers around and we're no longer in that stage of, okay, we have to sorted start out in crisis and we'll, we'll take care of the garbage after that. so we have to come up with sustainable and systematic solutions now. so yeah, so coincidence, ok, and the blender, joe, if i can bring you in now, because i could tell that you wanted to say something earlier. so the thing is that, you know, be recycling is not a solution back or, you know, the, what, what is the recycling about disintegrating bostic?

it's about incineration. we'll have to really look at our governments and our institutions to think beyond pandemic. there was a time, 2 years ago when there was an immediate emergency response. right now we are prepared. but the unfortunate part of this preparation is that we're still not yet prepared enough or to oversee, to understand, to really manage of these. we're actually manufacturing yet another public health crisis for the future generation. and that, that vision is not really clear. for our government, we just had our budget and on couple of, you know, just yesterday and there's no mention of biomedical be. so are we generation and thinking about to have them picked up on a point that you're making? because, you know, i think even when we're talking about mosque, that's disposable masks of the item that we have used most during the pandemic. the w h chose says that in 2020 something like 3400000000 disposable masks

were thrown out each day. a lot of these masks made of plastic. so why are you saying that they're not recyclable? no. so we need to understand a basic environmental policy. what is recycling? a lot of recycling is incineration, which is basically again, toxins need to understand that reciting the worst thing when it comes to environmental what you of course, and there's no other alternative that you actually have that in your age. there's nothing else that you can actually do other than burning plastic. but my, my issue there for that of very philosophy understanding of recycling, the last thing, the last, what you all are an environmental but you next sense and we've seen done what you're talking about. it, we've seen several of organizations and public health organizations talk about it that we need to really understand that it is 450 years for a mosque or a simple mass to decompose it, might take just a few seconds in an incinerator. but internet is not the best option,

so we need to really have a whole list understanding of garbage collection. like for example, in india, 75 percent of our budget actually goes into with transportation rather than actually managed to show up. it will be really great understanding of garbage whenever you do have, let me put that as the other shot because he does have a very good understanding of waste management. he, you know, develop the technology to treat waste. do you agree that recycling masks is just not an option? i mean, are they more environmentally friendly ways to get rid of some of this waste? first of all, let's agree that intimidation is not recycling. when you burn something, you're not recycling it. recycling, you know, in the, the, the, and your model g r term is that you are putting back this material back into practice. there is a cycle you are, you are following. when you burn it when you incinerated, you just lost it. ok, no,

we're not talking about the internet asian here, and we know, i mean, you can, you can just look up what we have been doing lately in bay. do you know, we are in the midst of a severe financial crisis. and a lot of of, of people now are resorting to stealing the manhole covers this deal manhole covers and my organization since april. now, we are using a facial masks, disposable, disposal of racial mass in a plastic matrix, and we are extruding them and we are making blasting manhole covers. so no recycling is definitely you know, if you're a technical person of someone, you who understand the behavior of plastic plastic is a fantastic material that last for hundreds of years,

all you need to do is put it to good use and definitely do not infinity. apparently, all right, and some of the other issues that we have here is that the messaging from the w h l . it certainly has developed, if not changed and developed a lot over the course of the pandemic as they get more information and up to v. as i want to ask you, you know, there's how important are the guidelines from the w. h chose classification from the w h l, for example, the w h l is saying that many facilities, many countries at the moment are classifying 100 bent of the waste of the clover, biting medical waste. they are generating as hazardous, which has resulted in places like wave him laying the giles in new delhi, the number of the amount of waste quadrupling in delhi during the height of the 2nd wave in may. so how important is classification and that,

that facilities, that countries follow the w h o guidelines? well, they've been regarded as very important your throughout the spend and we've seen it also opened the medical guidelines and that day they have to be practical pragmatic. so if you make everything the most given that the most dangerous classification you end up with way too much, if you put it to low bar to low level workers, health workers and other workers are endanger. if i look at my own situation in the country here, we have a lot of self testing and everybody is just putting their positive tests just in the normal waist. nobody cares seems to care about it. but the people that are picking up the garbage are in danger there. so to say so,

and there has been no discussion about it. right? and, you know, and on the need for discussion, you know, there when i was reading this report, there was some w h recommendations which actually surprised me as you know, a journalist who's tried to keep up with all the change in guidelines. the w. h o actually recommend, for example, it doesn't recommend the use of gloves administering vaccines. this appears to be common practice. again, we're so used to seeing health care workers and full p p e including glove. so is there enough, you know, is there more re education that's, that's necessary right now. yeah, a lot of countries have been slow, slowly moving into more and more use of p, p e. and now we're now it's a time for what the way chuckles, rational use. and that can be, you know, the gloves is one example. so you don't need to wear gloves according to w h. whoa, when and ministering vaccines. and in many countries it's been done to get

something to address and they can so abandoned their practice. but it's, it's the same for, for other use of b, b s. so that's one of the things, one of the things that recycling, one of the things is more better a waste streams. the other thing is so iteration or use. so it's not a simple solution. is the swiss cheese again that we have with the, with the cov, it's again as well with the coffee depend amick, all these different steps we need to take in order to, to solve this problem. yeah, absolutely not a simple solutions of lando job. you know, you work again in, in new delhi, around communities which living in proximity to poorly managed landfills, waste disposable size, which there's no shortage of what kind of guidelines or recommendations would you like to see from the w h o. now at this point, so, you know,

as i said earlier as well, you know, india currently the 6 months ago was actually producing almost 230 tons of corporate best based a d plus 600 tons of normal municipal base. so be any we have been dealing with municipal based issues or you know, a very fracture be experiment regime. and then we have a score would be my recommendation got which is really have a linkage between between based and public her belong to is not an organization which is always supposed to respond to corporate. it's also other diseases, so call it or call it prevention is actually leading to more and more diseases of future. and in fact, our water isn't right now. we know that in 20 years with last plastic, the amount of garbage, a plastic that could enter our oceans in 20 years, going to be 3 times more. so i think it's also a responsibility of w to,

to look at not just a short term response measure, reaction correction to go good. but all who do understand it long term that how do we actually take care of public health that we might be able to be safe from cobra by, by a p kid or a gloss which novice see it's not even needed. how do we actually solve this public health crisis for 30 years, 40 years, 50 years? because each of this garbage is going to remain in our system in our ecology, in our food chain for it please at least 400 to 500 years. and that's what i need, and i expect w h as well to respond to a future plan, a medium term, long term plan, risk management, public health crisis management. and the other shock of what is the role of, you know, national governance in this because the w h l can, of course, issue all the guidelines. but again, somewhere like lebanon, where the country is in the political, the economic crisis that it's, and it's had a waste management issue for years now. exactly. i mean,

and this is not just for lebanon, i'm a, i'm a great believer in local action. you know, when you have problems, the best way to solve them is to rely on the common intelligence of the community and pulling resources from the community. and going to go with a decision makers and saying, this is what we want. this is what we need make it happen. are always relying on on outside factors is, is just a, a way to delay the solution or to, to go now look at it from a lazy perspective, for all the problems that we are seeing. now our lessons for the future, and the biggest lesson that we should be learning is that we have to act locally and swiftly and to are also train

a lot of our of the population. we have to make them aware that you know, this is also bad for you. this is not just good for the environment. this is bad for our collective hell. we need to deal with these kinds of medea's, and these kinds of kids. and, and in a more responsible way, and local governments have the responsibility of placing the right infrastructure in place. we, we heard now that even in amsterdam, they were throwing away the set of testing kids with the, with the home, with the home garbage. this is, this is utterly unacceptable and helped to face have, what is the level of awareness and, and to them, and ina, in the netherlands and other european countries when it comes to disposing of when it comes despising of medical ways. but also the impact that it's having on the environment whoa encounters out the metal and sector debt to

real actor, basic medical waste that's been processed from the hospitals and municipal health stations where the vaccines threes as they call it, that that's kind of okay. and deaths that i can't this under control, but there's a huge environmental issue that was, i would argue in favor of some kind of global cleaning day for, for all the whole world population together to clean, at least the mass that we have now because it's did people don't seem to care, am in the a lot of people even make fun of leaving their face masks. in the weirdest places, she's more of a fun game than our files of responsibility. well, that's a certainly sounds like with the hunting need. a global clean up day, the marine, the jazz, one of the things i really want to cover in on this is plastic production is more, more than doubled since 3rd start of the pandemic. you know, how concerning is that for both the short term impacts off that on fresh water on

oceans and then of course the longer term and impact of nano plastics staying in the environment. so indeed, as in, you know, you're talking about plastic when you're talking with micro class and that's where we talk more, whether incinerated or whether we, we actually make it into a bucket or a product or a plastic sheet. all of the plastic is going to remain into our environment, plastic ways to recycling, also only downgrade into lower quality passing. that sense? i think it's, it's going to stay. it's going to be really important that it's disposed properly and that's where the role of the governments is very, very important to realize that my medical based efforts are by medical based management and disposal facilities needs to be improved. as i said earlier, we only have 200 of them in a, in a 1000000000 and a half people. and they're almost one quarter of

a country doesn't even add that facility. so therefore, we need to really have an integrated plan where we look at corona slash corporate, we look at public health and then we look at public ecology plastic will remain in our, in our, in our lives and to our who jane, if you don't respond to it right of it, we have a couple of minutes left in the program and i'd like to ask a very quick question to all of you to the w h. a report says that it's not an either or choice between kind of the 19 and the environment, but how do we reach that balance established? i'll start with you and david when you know this is not the 1st time the humanity experiences epidemic, you know, we've, we've been having them for the last 20 years. again and again and again. and it's always going to be the same thing unless you have the proper infrastructure in place for a pandemic. and for non pandemic related waste issues, you're gonna be facing the same problems all over again. it's,

it's the role of local governments and local communities to put the pressure had to put their put their act together and start putting down that infrastructure. yup. to visa. yeah, i would agree with that that the infrastructure is the most important thing is to stop ending up a blessed 6 from ending up in oceans is, is to, to stop from something from, from ending up there. so that's the most important thing in the and, and, and, and the report is, is, is pretty an extensive in, in giving all these different other steps that need to be done, like some recycling summers. i'm a different move to new materials, more sustainable materials. so but a lot of work needs to be done all in all these fields. ok. and at them land the jap, seen a common sense. civilization should have woken up in 2 years. it's been 2 years and still be don't realize we don't understand. and the not acting are we not giving

proportionate response to this based crisis? my only expectation and suggestion is that when damage is not over and we never know it's been around for 2 years. if you don't know how many more years it's going to continue, we need to really create systems. it is, this is a trigger warning for all of us and our respective governments to really invest in biomedical bees in invest in based treatment and in our public health. all right, mr. john. thank you very much for that and thank you to all of i guess, landed in delhi z as r v shack it. and they vote. and y'all to freeze and amsterdam and thank you to for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website al jazeera dot com. and for further discussion, do go to our facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash ha inside story. you can also join the conversation on twitter handle at ha, inside story. from me, it is the problem and the entire team here,

bye for now. ah diets define who we are. but who are way, if we don't know what we're eating in a disturbing investigation into globalized food fraud, people and power reveals long hidden scandalous practices. the def, infiltrated international wholesale markets, and supermarket chains. and asks, what's really on our plates. food in glorious food on out jersey, around february on a just the sign to host the winter olympics, but will diplomatically call the corona virus overshadow, event rigorous debate. them unflinching questions up front. cut through the

headlights to challenge conventional wisdom. how does they will keep you up to date as nascent faculty omicron buried amid continued vaccine inequality? one 0, one east investigates how breakfast the pandemic and changing tastes are causing the great british curry crisis. amid record levels of unemployment and explain the quality cost to we can still to the po, february on a just eop. the corona virus has been indiscriminate in selecting its victims. it's devastating effects of plague, every corner of the globe, transcending class creed and color. but in britain, a disproportionately high percentage of the fallen have been black or brown skins. the big picture traces the economic disparities and institutional racism that is seen united kingdom fail it. citizens, britons, true colors pop to on al jazeera,

ah, revealing eco friendly solutions to combat threats to our planet. on al jazeera, ah, they were sending additional troops to eastern europe, as fear, as gro, russia could invade ukraine. moscow called the deployment destruct. ah, you're walking out, is there a lie from headquarters in ohio jedi navigator? also a heads reopening their borders. new zealand is set to loosen some of the world's toughest coven 19 restrictions. opposition. politicians put on trial and universities closed nicaraguan present.