Cadmium traced in soft drink sludge
Soft drinks are in a pollution tangle again. Eight of the 16 soft drink plants surveyed by the Central Pollution Control Board (cpcb) had a cadmium concentration more than 50 mg/kg of sludge -- in the rest it ranged between five to 50 mg/kg.
Cadmium is a highly carcinogenic metal. Namo Narain Meena, Union minister of state for environment and forests informed this to Rajya Sabha on March 10,2006.
State pollution control boards have also been asked to monitor the sludge generated from effluent treatment plants to check the concentration of various metals notified under schedule-2 of the Hazardous Waste (management and handling) Rules, 1989, as amended, prior to the disposal of sludge, Meena said.
The Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board and Kerala State Pollution Control Board have initiated necessary action in this regard. The survey came in wake of complaints against soft drink manufacturing units in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh and Plachimada and Palakkad districts in Kerala indicating the dumping of sludge and slurry from these units.
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