THERE is a good chance the leafy vegetables that make it to your salad bowls were irrigated using untreated or partially treated sewage. Each day an estimated 20,000 million litres of sewage is used for irrigation—five times what Delhi generates each day—but more than half of it is untreated. Faecal …
How do sanitisers harm the environment? Antimicrobial household and personal care products mostly depend on two chemicals—triclosan and triclocarban. As we use the products, the chemicals are washed down the drain. Even after treatment, 50 to 70 per cent of the compounds remain in municipal biosolids. Less than 3 per …
Why a song on mining? I am a trained environmental engineer, so I always wanted to write a song on environmental degradation caused by mining in Australia. I am not sure why I did not write it before, but it is an opportune time as mining is expanding in the …
A New York Times investigation has revealed that months before the BP disaster, some Congressional officials in the US were pressing federal regulators about numerous safety concerns related to offshore drilling, potential oil spills and BP itself. But they were rebuffed. The officials raised concerns about the safety of a …
DESPITE closure notices several industrial units are operating in Mahad tehsil of Raigad district, polluting a river and wells. As a result fishing and farming in the region have been badly affected. On November 30, Mahad subregional office of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) issued notices to six industrial …
MARINE biologists had almost given up hope of saving the green sea turtle in the 1980s following an uptick in a tumourcausing disease among the endangered species. They thought the deadly condition might drive the largest hard-shelled sea turtle to extinction. “But that did not happen for a variety of …
THE Nagpur bench of the Mumbai high court has ordered restoration of the world’s third largest meteorite lake in the Buldhana district of Maharashtra. A recent study by a group appointed by the court, pointed out that Lonar lake is a dumping ground for raw sewage from localities in the …
Erika, who is a photographer, and myself, headed out in a boat from Fourchon, US state Louisi ana’s southernmost port. We had four co-travellers: Jonathan Henderson from non-profit Gulf Restoration Network, his friend Randy, who is a cameraman, and Craig, our fishing captain and guide. It was August 16, the …
THE Tripura State Pollution Control Board has ordered public sector company, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), to suspend exploratory drilling at Aralia village near Agartala in mid- September. The move follows site inspection by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) that found ONGC flouting environmental norms. The company is …
GAUGING a river’s health need not be complex. Taxonomists can make the job very simple. These biologists, who have specialised in the classification of organisms, can determine a river’s health with the unaided eye by simply studying the organisms present. There is little need, therefore, for bottling samples and rushing …
MARSH India, an insurance brokerage firm, has announced policy cover for water utilities against water contamination like the one witnessed in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir in August. Over 1,000 persons suffered from gastroenteritis after drinking contaminated water; heavy rains and flash floods had damaged the supply network. The …
In late July, BP admitted to doctoring photographs to show that BP was hard at work in a salvaging mission at the Gulf of Mexico oil spill site. A blog identified an altered photograph on BP's website. The website said it was a photo taken from inside a helicopter that …
On July 27, a catamaran called Plastiki, made of 12,500 PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles, arrived at Sydney's Darling Harbour. David de Rothschild sailed 8,000 nautical miles from San Francisco to Sydney on Plastiki to make a point on the way plastic is used. "You go a couple of hundred miles …
Aveteran Panaman journalist who was arrested for an article he wrote 12 years ago was released after spending 19 days behind bars. In 1998, Carlos Nuñez wrote about a polluted river in the western province of Chiriqui. "I am here for having defended a river of the Baru volcano, for …
On 27 May 2010, with crude oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico after the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig, the Obama administration announced it would pause offshore drilling plans in the Arctic Ocean, one of the planet’s most pristine ecosystems. Hailed by environmental groups, the decision was …
FOR the past five years Hyderabad has been trying to clean the Hussain Sagar Lake, separating the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad in Andhra Pradesh. The efforts suffered yet another blow on June 20 when the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) denied permission to dredge the mouths of …
This expert panel report on Vedanta's bauxite mining project in Orissa submitted to MoEF on August 16, 2010 says that the company must not given permission for this project as it has illegally occupied forest land andwill also threaten survival of local tribes. <br>The proposed mining lease (PML) area, which …
Sushil Kumar Lodhi, 32, walks about Dashehari village with newspaper clippings, which carried news of his grandfather’s death. His grandfather suffered a heart attack on his way back from Lucknow. He went there to convince officials not to build a solid waste management facility in their village because it would …
DESPITE a 40-year national programme to mitigate its prevalence, anaemia remains the second most common cause of maternal deaths in India. Since 1970, government doctors have been recommending iron and folic acid tablets to pregnant women—and distributing them free—to combat anaemia. Yet, studies conducted in rural Delhi in 2002 show …
AFTER the government dumped its plan to rope in international consultants, seven IITs have come together to prepare a strategy to revive the Ganga. A first of its kind for a river in India, the plan will concentrate on the entire basin to ensure quality and quantity flow in the …
