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Medicine waste collection programme ‘PROUD’ to be implemented by Clean Kerala Ltd
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Peethaambaran Kunnathoor, Chennai
September 19 , 2022
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PROUD, the medicine waste collection programme implemented jointly by the Kerala drugs control administration and the state chemists and druggists association (AKCDA) in 2019, will be taken forward by the Clean Kerala Company Ltd (CKCL), an agency functioning under the Local Self-Government Department aimed to ensure management of waste materials from public places.
The objective of PROUD or the Programme on Removal of Unused Drugs, a project implemented first in Kerala in the country, is collection and appropriate disposal of medicines wastage from pharmacy and household premises.
For state level implementation, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was recently signed by the department of drugs control and the CKCL which will introduce the scheme throughout the state with the support of ‘Haritha Karma Sena (Green Task Force)’, a team of trained personnel to provide technical services and solutions on waste management.
According to Jayan Menon, state drugs controller, the program was introduced in the capital district in 2019 as a pilot project, but could not be introduced across other districts because of the Covid 19 pandemic. Since it has come under the control of the CKCL it will work out well and the chemists and druggists association will provide all support to it.
He said, currently the collection and disposal of unused and date-expired drugs are carried out only in Thiruvananthapuram district where it is still continuing without any interruption. The CKCL will introduce the scheme in Kollam district very soon, followed by another district.
Giving details about the project, LK Sreejith, managing director of the Clean Kerala Company, said the company will launch the program in October and in the initial phase it will be introduced in two districts only. When the government allocates more funds, the project will be introduced in other districts also. As regards disposal of the wastes, he said the medical shops coming under the AKCDA will keep waste bins near their shops and people can drop their unwanted pharmaceuticals into the bins. Secondly, the Haritha Karma Sena will visit each house in two weeks and collect the medicine wastes directly. The waste bins are sponsored by the AKCDA, but those shops who are not members of the association will be provided the bins by the company. Every month-end, the collected waste will be taken to the godown of the Kerala Environmental Infrastructure Ltd (KEIL) in Kochi for scientific disposal.
Responding to the ongoing project in Thiruvananthapuram district, the secretary of the disctrict committee of the AKCDA, J Jayanarayanan Thampi said his district association has not stopped the collection of medicine wastes from their shops and the programme is going on smoothly. But, he said, the association faces two problems for which immediate solution is required. First one is lack of facilities for keeping the waste and secondly they encounter difficulty in disposing of it. He said over 150 bins are still kept before the medical shops operating in the city and in rural areas. He said the next state council meeting of the AKCDA is in Thiruvananthapuram and medicine waste collection is an item in the agenda.
When Pharmabiz contacted AN Mohan, the state president of the association, his response to the PROUD project was not encouraging. Jayanarayanan Thampi said the association has spent a lot of rupees for purchasing collection bins, and it incurs huge costs.
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