No land for best option: composting
Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala, does not have a municipal waste-treatment facility. Its only plant to treat solid waste, located …
‘Handling toxic waste is a matter of science, not administration’
Whether it is the dismantling of toxics laden ship from the US, Oriental Nicety, or the clean up of the 350 tonnes of waste lying at the defunct …
Cutting out waste
The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has recently initiated ecofriendly pilot projects at its Bangalore aircraft division, which will not only …
Brinksman
As Le Clemenceau bobs on the horizon, reactions in India get sharper, noisier. We've discovered occupational safety. Asbestos is used in …
"The West now understands that waste can be a resource"
Sweden's UNO WINBLAD was not a sanitation engineer but had trained as an architect in London in the late '50s. Those were the days of mounting …
IT's underbelly
India produces about 400,000 tonnes of electronic waste each year, growing exponentially. Handling this is a great challenge. What adds to it is …
There's nothing august about Mumbai
July 26, 2005: It began raining at 11 am. In the next 24 hours, India's most populous city received 944 mm of rainfall. The resultant flood …
What's cooking in India's largest biogas plant
Methan village in Sidhpur tehsil, Patan district of Gujarat saves 500 metric tonnes of fuelwood annually. They've been doing it for the last 15 …
Melting Pots
Of the 10 persons defecating in the open globally, six are Indians. By 2019, six will be from African countries, and none from India, as the …
The waste-to-energy plant violates emission norms by not using environment-friendly technologies
Since 2009, the residents of Sukhdev Vihar, a residential colony in Delhi, have been fighting against a waste-to-energy plant operated by Jindal …
Of algae, worms and cash flow
Continuing the series on organic farming, Down To Earth's reporter found that both the scientific community and farmers are showing interest in …
Doomed! Carry on flushing
two years ago the Supreme Court fixed 31 March 2003 as the deadline for cleaning the Yamuna. It's April 2003 now and unbelievably, the river that …
The political economy of defecation
This is a story about Delhi and the Yamuna, about the relationship between one of India's richest cities and one of her most revered rivers. The …
No concrete plans
The Centre for Science and Environment's Green Rating Project team has rated the cement industry. Its findings uncovered some surprises. The …
A Public Effort
Where the government has failed miserably in providing quality service to the people, some ngos have set an example on how urban waste can be …
Bogged Down
Waste generation is not rare in urban areas, nor any other part of the world. The only difference is in the management of wastes. An effective, …
What it takes to clean a river
It is the tale of two European rivers. The Rhine and the Danube. No river system in the world has a density of industrial agglomerations …
The precarious geopolitics of phosphorous
Both nitrogen and phosphorous are essential to life. Lynchpins both to global food production, circulating through synthesis or export and then …
The lake colony
Call them the "lakers". Some 10,000 of them. Parts of the Dal (land and water) belong to them. And when they feel the need to make a …
Stained steel
The iron and steel sector is regarded as the core of Indian economy. Its players are big and powerful. It is extremely resource-intensive and …
What goes down must come up
It is a crime. Numerous factories deliberately inject untreated effluents directly into the ground, contaminating underground aquifers. Down …
The vanishing lakes
There is more water than land in north Bihar. The rivers that ramble down from the Himalaya feed numerous depressions scattered all over the …
It is a crime. Numerous factories deliberately inject untreated effluents directly into the ground, contaminating underground aquifers. Down To …
How green is your building?
The building's green credentials have been recognised internationally, most notably by the us Green Business Council (usgbc). The Washington-…
Rising popularity of artificial vanilla puts Kerala farmers in distress
Vanilla is said to be the world's most popular flavour. As much as 40 per cent of the world's ice cream is vanilla flavoured. Its sweet, mildly …
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