The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) in National Capital Region (NCR) and Adjoining Areas has issued a directive emphasizing stricter measures to control paddy stubble burning during the 2024
Samples of air and wastewater belonging to the sugar mills of Sindh are being collected by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials for the last two days to check whether they are polluting environment, especially air and water. One of the sugar mills releases its toxic waste in a waterway that finds its way into the upstream Kotri Barrage. The samples are being taken under the directives of EPA Director-General Abdul Malik Ghauri, who has sent three officials, Ashiq Ali Dhamrah, Jehangir Hussain and Mohammad Hashim. An EPA official from Hyderabad, Irfan Abbasi, and two environmental inspectors from the district concerned are part of the team that is visiting different sugar mills. It was learnt here on Tuesday that the team had so far visited six sugar mills and one alcohol-producing unit. The mills included the Al-Abbas Sugar Mills, Mirpurkhas Sugar Mills, Matiari Sugar Mills, Digri Sugar Mills and Najma Sugar Mills. Their air samples and wastewater samples have been collected. The officials are travelling along with a mobile laboratory that had been gifted to Pakistan by the Japanese government. While confirming that the testing of samples would take some time, Mr Ghauri said: "Some samples are analysed in the mobile laboratory while some are sent to us in Karachi so that they can be tested at the main laboratory.' He said that the samples were being checked so that the sugar mills would improve their environmental standard. An official of the team told Dawn that one of the sugar mills was releasing its wastewater in a waterway that finds its way into the upstream Kotri barrage. A report said that the exercise of testing of air quality has been initiated by EPA in view of the on-going sugarcane season which began in December and would continue for another couple of months. According to environmentalists, smoke emitted from the chimneys of sugar mills pollutes the air and it causes various problems for the people who live in their vicinity. Mr Ghauri said that first air and liquid samples would be analysed and then the sugar mills would be graded. When asked whether any proceedings would follow if the sugar mills were found guilty of environmental pollution, he replied: "Certainly notices will be issued to the relevant sugar mill if the quality of air emission and wastewater don't conform with the National Environmental Quality Standards.' According to water technologist Dr Ahsan Siddiqui, the wastewater of a sugar mill is released on its own open ground by the mills management. He, however, added that the mill in question had no right to do that because wastewater through seepage contaminated water contained in the sub-soil, which is a natural resource of water for people who obtained water through suction pumps.
Greasy hair may not help you to attract the object of your affection, but it might reduce the amount of ozone you breathe in. Lakshmi Pandrangi and Glenn Morrison from the University of Missouri in Rolla exposed eight washed and eight unwashed hair samples to ozone for 24 hours. They found that, on average, unwashed hair. absorbs around seven times as much ozone as freshly washed hair
Discharge of untreated effluents from Khazana Sugar Mills has turned Shahalam River into a dead tributary causing water, land and air pollution in the surrounding areas of the provincial capital. Thousands of litres of hazardous waste are discharged into Shahalam, a tributary of River Kabul, daily during crushing season, which starts from December every year and continues till the end of March. Local people say that they cannot use the river water due to toxic waste. Khazana Sugar Mills which was privatised in mid-1990s situated near the river. Its crushing capacity is 4,000 tons per day, but presently it crushes over 2,000 tons of sugarcane daily due to lack of supply, says the management of the mills. The mills' manager administration Tali Mand said that over 200,000 tons of sugarcane had been crushed during current season. He said that the management had planed to build treatment plant before discharging the waste into the river, but the mills was going into losses which delayed the project. The mills' effluent is released into Shahalam River without treatment. Environmentalists said that hazardous substances discharged from the sugar mills absorbed oxygen from the water which caused water and air pollution. Residents of Khazana complain that discharge of untreated waste from the mills is not only polluting the river, but also causing severe air pollution. "We can hardly breathe because of the stink of effluents,' said Izatullah, a resident of Khazana. Industrial waste, he said, posed threat to aquatic life and every year killed thousands of fish in the river when the management washed the mills. Shahalam throws toxic waste of Khazana Sugar Mills into Kabul River. Provincial Environmental Protection Agency director general Dr Bashir Khan said that release of hazardous industrial waste into the river was a crime under the law and the agency would take legal action against the management of the mills. "The EPA inspectors will immediately visit the site and will serve notice on the mills' management,' he added. Under section 11(1) of the Environmental Protection Act, 1997 no person shall discharge or emit or allow the discharge or emission of any effluent or waste or air pollutant or noise in an amount, concentration or level which is in excess of the National Environmental Quality Standards.
Behaviour of monsoon in different climates to be assessed Integrated adaptation strategies to be identified The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University has initiated an inter-continental collaborative research on air pollution. The Norwegian Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research (Bioforsk), Norway, and the International Pacific Research Centre, University of Hawaii, will collaborate with the university in the project, which is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Indian Meteorological Department and the Department of Science and Technology will also be involved. The Monterrey Tech., Mexico, will extend technical support in nano-nutrients that will help to minimise the impact of greenhouse gases, said a release. Scientific platform "The project will provide a scientific platform for these institutes to initiate research on mitigating the negative impact of global warming on Indian agriculture, especially in rice productivity,' says S. Natarajan, Director, Centre for Soil and Crop Management Studies, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University. The project will assess the behaviour of monsoon in different climates, and its impact on water availability and rice production in different meteorological sub-divisions. The research, Mr. Natarajan reckons, will lead to identification and implementation of integrated adaptation strategies to sustain rice productivity under changing climatic conditions. Vice-Chancellor C. Ramasamy and Mr. Natarajan will lead the steering committee.
People visiting the famed Khajuraho temples, known for their erotic sculptures, can now travel to the site in special battery-powered vehicles
A record number of 28 of Japan's 47 prefectures issued photochemical oxidant smog warnings in 2007, including Niigata and Oita prefectures, which issued warnings for the first time, the Environment Ministry said in a report Tuesday. The number of people who reported health problems due to the smog, which causes symptoms such as eye and throat pain, reached 1,910 in 14 prefectures, the ministry said. Warnings were issued in Saitama on 32 days, the highest number, followed by Kanagawa on 20 days, and Chiba and Tokyo on 17 days.
Saving the Maidan's green cover from pollution and turning it into the Guild's "permanent fair ground' is possible, provided the state government, the pollution control board and the ordinary book lover unite, city-based environmentalists said. The 32nd Kolkata Book Fair could not be held this year, due to the lack of a "permanent fair ground' and a token book fair is being organised at the Salt Lake stadium in March. Environmentalists think the amount of footfall at the book fair and pollution from vehicles are the two factors harmful to the Maidan's environment.
The driver of the car shows the gas cannister stored in the trunk of the car. The Minister of Environment, Energy and Water Ahmed Abdulla has welcomed the fact that Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) was being used to power a taxi for the first time in Maldives.
Alarming evidence for the way air pollution damages the cardiovascular system emerged on Monday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston. Although "clean air' legislation has cleaned up the most visible smog-like pollution in industrialised countries, Lung Chi Chen of the medical school at New York University said microscopic soot particles from vehicle exhausts killed an estimated 30,000-40,000 people a year in the US. Breathing the air in New York City was similar to living with a smoker in terms of risk from heart disease, he said. Several scientists said exposure to ultra-fine particles at levels found in city centres triggered heart disease in laboratory animals. Even the most modern diesel and petrol engines with efficient filters generated the most dangerous particles (less than 2.5 microns in diameter), Dr Chen said. In addition, chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons pose a serious threat to human health according to John Incardona, researcher with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Dr Incardona said PAHs, which affected fish exposed to oil spills, were also "prime suspects for cardiovascular impacts related to air pollution'. Even in "safe' levels, particulate air pollution added to the cardiovascular health burden. "Estimates of toxicity based solely on measurements of particles are likely to dramatically underestimate the net health impact of complex emissions,' said Matt Campen of the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute in New Mexico. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
New York: Kids who live in neighborhoods with heavy traffic pollution have lower IQs and score worse on other tests of intelligence and memory than children who breathe cleaner air, a new study shows. The effect of pollution on intelligence was similar to that seen in children whose mothers smoked 10 cigarettes a day while pregnant, or in kids who have been exposed to lead, Dr Shakira Franco Suglia of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, the study's lead author, said.
