Next gen toilets

FOUND in the uninhabitable climes of Antarctica, psychrotrophic bacteria could be the answer to India’s sanitation problems. After successful experimentation in high altitude toilets used by defence personnel, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) plans to use the bacteria to tackle the problem caused by open defecation in the country. It will also be put to use in Indian Railways.

Stench in my backyard

Too hot to handle

India has tightened guidelines for storage of toxic industrial waste. But is it enough? A fire at Ankleshwar forced India to rethink how it handles hazardous waste. Drums carrying dangerous industrial sludge flew amid leaping flames and burst in the air at a waste storage at the industrial complex in Bharuch district of Gujarat on April 3 last year. Ash fell all around. People in nearby villages were told to evacuate; many suffered coughing, headache, nausea and burning sensation in the nose and throat.

Interstate dirty dumpers

Seventy kilometres from Bangalore, a lorry veered off the main road and headed in an unusual direction towards groundnut fields in Yadagere village of Karnataka's Tumkur district. It stopped at an unsown field in the middle of nowhere. Torches were flashing in the dark. A flurry of activities followed, disturbing the midnight quiet. Some people jumped out of the lorry and began offloading barrels after barrels. Others with spades and shovels emptied them into 10-foot-deep pits in the field.

Costs and benefits of India's waste disposal options

No concrete plans

The cement industry is India's ultimate sunshine industry. Up until the 1980s, it was not growing phenomenally. Now it is. After cement was decontrolled in 1989, the industry took off -- its growth rate far outstripping that of the country's gross domestic product. In terms of production capacity, it has grown almost two-and-a-half times -- from 61 million tonnes in 1989-90 to 157.5 in 2003-2004.

The political economy of defecation

Ecologically mindless

WHILE attending the Stockholm Water Symposium a few years ago, my colleague, Anil Agarwal, and I were invited to a banquet by the king of Sweden. But instead of dining in splendour we were checking out toilets in some remote parts of the city. I was not too convinced of our mission. We opened the hatch of "alternative" toilets bins, where the faecal matter is stored before composting.

enter -The green rating project

Indian industry is huge and powerful. Most environmentalists believe that it has done little to reduce pollution. Is there, therefore, anything that the civil society can do to change the situation?

Waste pays