Ragpickers oppose waste to energy plants

With the fear of losing their means of living looming over them, waste pickers from across the country have opposed Delhi government’s plan to install three waste to energy plants in the city. “How can the proposed energy generation of 40 MW justify the loss of 350,000 jobs,” asks Dharmendra Yadav, general secretary of All India Kachra Sharamail Mahasang (AIKSM) which organised a state-level meet of waste pickers on December 22.

Audit of India's water bodies confirms their polluted status

The Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG) report on water pollution, tabled in Parliament on December 16, confirms what is already known and apparent. After more than two and a half decades of the Centre's attempts to control pollution, our lakes and rivers remain critically polluted. According to the report titled Water pollution in India, no efforts have been made to compile a list of water bodies in the country. Even the process of identifying lakes and rivers for pollution abatement has been flawed, says the report.

Nagpur bench stays transfer of Bhopal's toxic waste

The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has ordered a stay on the possible transfer of the toxic waste lying in the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal to the incineration facility maintained by the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) near Nagpur. The transfer of about 350 tonnes of hazardous waste from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh to Nagpur in Maharashtra has become a contentious matter between the two states; both the Nagpur bench and the Jabalpur bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court are simultaneously hearing petitions relating to disposing of the waste.  

Hazardous delay

IT TOOK the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) five years to reply to the Supreme Court. It has submitted an affidavit giving details about the status of compliance with 29 directives on hazardous waste, which the apex court had passed in 2003. But experts say the document is not comprehensive and is misleading.

Letters - December 31, 2011

Cautious Warning It appears that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has tightened its procedures in the hope of preventing errors in terms of the language used in its report (‘Future shock’, November 16-30, 2011).

Environment ministry, CPCB endorse burning Bhopal's toxic waste at Nagpur

In a surprise move, the Union environment ministry and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) have supported disposing of Bhopal's toxic waste at the Nagpur waste facility maintained by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). In its report submitted to the Jabalpur bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court on November 22, CPCB said the DRDO facility near Borkhedi in Nagpur district is capable of incinerating the waste from the now defunct Union Carbide plant, and asked the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) to cooperate.

Clean energy fund to be used for cleaning 12 toxic dump sites

The Central Pollution Control Board is in talks with pollution control departments of eight states to begin remediation work at 12 sites which have been contaminated by highly toxic waste waste. The recently launched National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) has approved Rs 60 crore for preparing detailed project reports for the sites. Activists say the exercise might turn out to be a theoretical one.

Water pollution hot spots identified in Indian rivers

The Central Water Commission has compiled and averaged a decade (2001-2011) of water quality data, collected from 371 monitoring stations located at all major, medium and minor rivers in India. The report, made available recently, but published in August this year, has identified hot spots or stretches of rivers where certain water quality parameters have been found to exceed permissible limits (see map).

Stinking for two decades

Residents of a small village in Gujarat once banked on a lake for irrigation. Today, the revered Wrun Mukteshwar Mahadev Temple lake has turned violet. People of Nodhana in Bharuch district say seepage of industrial waste from a nearby effluent channel has contaminated the lake and fields over the past two decades.

Liability sans facility

TO TACKLE the waste generated by the booming health industry, the Union environment ministry plans to amend the Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules of 1998. The ministry had posted the draft rules on its website in August for public comment and is evaluating the recommendations.