There Is A Business Opportunity For Medical Waste Recycling, This Is The Explanation From Head Of National Research and Technology Agency

JAKARTA - Head of the National Research and Technology Agency (BRIN) Laksana Tri Handoko invites business actors in the regions, especially small businesses, to take advantage of the current condition of the accumulation of COVID-19 medical waste.

He said this after attending a limited meeting chaired by President Joko Widodo. During the meeting, Jokowi was worried about the increase in medical B3 waste in line with the high number of COVID-19 cases.

Handoko said that the utilization was in the form of recycling. According to him, medical waste recycling technology has the potential to create added value, creating a new economy.

"Recycling of medical waste has the potential to become a business for business actors in regional areas, especially small-scale business actors", said Handoko in a virtual press conference, Wednesday, July 28.

Handoko gave an example, business actors can destroy used needles to masks and recycle them into other raw materials. "An example is a syringe crusher that can produce residue in the form of pure stainless steel. Also recycling for PPE and masks whose material is polypropylene or PP, so that we can produce pure PP plastics whose economic value is also quite high", he explained.

On the other hand, the use of recycling can also increase the compliance of health facilities in health facilities that consume waste because there are financial incentives.

"With this, we hope that it can increase motivation to collect and process waste which increases compliance. From a business perspective, this will result in recycling and of course, it will have the potential to reduce overall waste treatment costs", said Handoko.