70 TONS OF GARBAGE REMOVED FROM HOSPITAL GROUNDS

(Calcutta, India) This story should provide a glimpse into what life is like in another country.

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) removed 70 tonnes of garbage, including hazardous bio-medical waste, and a dozen stray dogs from the SSKM Hospital campus on the first day of "Operation U-turn" on Monday morning.

By evening, the superintendent of MR Bangur Hospital had requested the mayor's help to remove tonnes of accumulated rotten pillows, quilts and blankets from its premises.

Several aspects of this story are frightening. One is that a hospital should be the most sanitary of places and it obviously isn't. Another is that nine additional hospital facilities are identified by the article as having the same problem. And, lastly, the medical community and society in general do not appear to see the need to process bio-medical waste differently from worn-out mattresses and pillows.

This leaves one question begging to be asked. Where are the environmental protesters?