Almost four decades after the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, about 337 metric tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide factory was sent for disposal on January 1 to Pithampur Industrial Area in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district, 250 hundred kilometres from the state capital.
But locals in the area have organised continuous large-scale protests against the disposal of this toxic waste in Pithampur since December 29. The distance from Indore to Pithampur is just 20 kilometres.
Pithampur’s residents have organised a rally on January 2 and a bandh on January 3. Sanjay Londhe, president of Mahatma Gandhi Medical College Alumni Association in Indore, has gone to the court and filed a petition in protest against the burning of the waste.
Londhe notes in the petition that the adverse effects of atomic bombs dropped by the United States on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still being felt. If the waste from the Bhopal Gas Tragedy is burnt in Pithampur, it will have adverse effects on the surrounding area for the next hundred years.
The protests by locals in Pithampur is not the first demonstration against lethal legacy waste being unwittingly deposited in another area. Similar protests have been documented country wide.
There is the case of Pirana village in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad district. A landfill that gradually developed on the outskirts of Gujarat’s largest city, has locals up in arms.
Kamaal Siddiqui, president of Insaaf Foundation, had filed a petition in the Gujarat High Court regarding the dumping of old garbage. The court ruled that the mountain of garbage should be removed from here, Siddiqui told Down to Earth (DTE).
The court’s decision came during the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, the decision’s implementation could start only last year. So far, forty per cent of the landfill’s garbage has been sent to the outskirts of Ahmedabad city like Bopal, Chiloda and Gyaspur areas. But now, locals are strongly opposing the dumping of this waste.
Siddiqui also spoke to DTE about authorities’ policy in India of picking up garbage from one place and dumping it in another.
“In December 2024, I had filed an application in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) regarding this. I had noted that it is absolutely wrong to pick up garbage from one place and dump it in another. By putting such waste aside, the authorities shirk their duty,” Siddiqui noted.
The AMC has not responded to Siddiqui’s application. “We will take this matter to court after waiting for one more week,” he said.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had also listed shortcomings in Gujarat’s waste management in November 2024. The tribunal pointed out several wrong steps taken by the government for waste management in the progress report it presented.
The court had fined the state government Rs 2,100 crore in 2023, due to shortcomings in waste management. However, the state government escaped the fine after presenting an affidavit.
Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, has not one but two huge mounds of rubbish on its outskirts: One in Perungudi and another in Pallikaranai. Locals have continuously protested against both these landfills.
Recently, residents of Perungudi protested against an energy project slated to start at the landfill. They called for an immediate halt to the project, failing which they threatened to intensify their protests.
In neighbouring Pallikaranai, the local residents’ welfare association is opposing the energy plant given that the wetland in the area, the Pallikaranai Marsh, is a Ramsar site, which plays a key role in preventing floods in Chennai.
The welfare association said the waste-to-energy project was likely to impact residents living within a 6 km radius of the site. It could impact the biodiversity of the Pallikaranai Marsh.
Apart from this, there are three other landfills elsewhere in India — Bhandewadi Dumping Yard in Nagpur, Mandur Dumping Yard in Bengaluru and Muland Dumping Yard in Mumbai — where locals protest every day.
About 277 billion kilograms of garbage is generated every year in India. Approximately 205 kg of garbage is generated per person.