How to treat separate waste collection products to avoid contagion from Covid 19

We soon understood that the virus, Covid 19 or Coronavirus , is terribly contagious through airways by seeing what happened in China and what is happening in Europe, but we must also consider how to treat the products we buy and the waste we produce, to avoid any infections.

After China, which we saw as very distant for several weeks, in which the virus had devastated the social balance of a part of the country, we suddenly woke up, not all of us in Europe I would say, with the virus at home.

We know that the primary source of contagion remains airborne, with the sneezing and coughing of those who are infected, through which vaporisation and saliva, in which the virus is present, is expelled from our body.

We have learned to understand how to defend ourselves through masks, gloves and social distancing.

But what do we know about the survival of the Covid-19 virus on the surfaces and products we use every day?

Not much, according to the Italian National Institute of Health, committed to managing the epidemic in its country, the virus deactivates in a time span varying between a few minutes and 8-9 days, based on the behavior of other similar viruses studied previously .

This large temporal range depends on the type of surface with which the virus comes into contact, on conditions such as humidity, heat, temperature and many other more technical factors.

Since we cannot know whether the packaging we touch can carry a previously deposited virus, we must also be very careful when handling the products we use and which will become waste.

It would be advisable to go shopping using disposable gloves and once the purchased products enter the house, wipe them, where possible, with alcohol-based liquids.

But even the domestic waste that we throw away would be better if it followed different paths, if you are positive for Covid-19 or if you are in quarantine, compared to the traditional selection that we normally do at home.

Let's see some examples:

• Plastic, glass, paper, food residues, handkerchiefs, masks and gloves (to give some examples) would be better placed in the undifferentiated waste bag, without therefore separating them, to be sent to waste-to-energy plants.

• The bags must represent a sturdy casing, which cannot be broken during handling by the operator who collects the waste. If the bags are very thin, use more than one overlapping one.

• The closure of the bags must be hermetic, so that there is no possibility of the waste spilling out if they tip over. Ligations must be done with non-use gloves. Then throw the gloves into another bag for undifferentiated waste collection.

• Always wash your hands at the end of the operation for at least 30 seconds with soap and water.