A year of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown up many challenges and one of them is the surge in bio-medical waste. According to the data released by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the average quantity of COVID-19 related bio-medical waste generation was about 162 tonnes per day (TPD) for the month of November 2020. This quantity is in addition to the regular bio-medical waste generation of about 610 TPD per day (as of June, 2020). The waste is not only being generated from hospitals, labs and other medical facilities but also from households. In the last six months, between June to November, India produced 28,468.85 tonnes of COVID-19 related bio-medical waste. As the year 2020 comes to an end, experts share the lessons to be learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic when it come to waste management.