Abstract:

Hospital effluent contains various hazardous contaminant including pharmaceutical residues, hazardous substances like hypochlorite, gluteraldehyde and other chemicals discharged from laboratories, dialysis units etc. They also have traces of radioactive isotopes, cytotoxics and pathogens. Due to so many emerging contaminants present in the hospital water, it poses physical, chemical and biological risk to aquatic environment and public health. Howsoever, there are as such no legal obligations before discharging the hospital effluent into the drain or surface water. Since, there is so much criticality of the hospital effluent composition and the risk associated with it is huge there is a dire need to impart proper treatment before discharging it into drain. However, there are no specific discharge standards in India for the contaminants present in the effluent. Rather in most of the countries there are no legal requirements as such for the disposal of the hospital effluent. This has become a matter of concern as legislations are homogenous in nature but donot enforce the limitation on these contaminants. The pharmaceutical residues have not been given a regulatory status in all the industrial countries. This paper aims to review the present regulations, legislations and guidelines relating to hospital effluent to draw attention towards need to have more stringent legislations for the same.