Plastic Overshoot Day marks the point when the amount of plastic waste generated exceeds the world’s capacity to manage it, resulting in environmental pollution. In 2024, the global Plastic Overshoot Day is projected to occur on September 5th. Each country has its own Plastic Overshoot Day, which is determined by …
Will the ministry of environment and forests (MEF) never let Orissa prosper? Biju Patnaik has been claiming so for years now. Adding more grist to his mill, the MEF has recently put the spanner in the latest of Orissa's prestigious steel projects. The Rs 480 crore plant was to be …
Agra's Taj Mahal will soon heave a sigh of relief and breathe clean air, it seems. In the first week of March Satish Sharma, the minister of state for petroleum and natural gas, announced a 10-point strategy to save this pristine white monument to love from the corrosive effects of …
THAT biomass can be an antidote against global warming is an optimistic proposition. It seems unlikely that afforestation can keep pace with the rate of pollution of the atmosphere. Even if it did, it appears inconceivable that enough land would be available to grow trees to absorb sufficient volumes of …
"TO BE or not to be": one is immediately struck by the stark bipolarity suggested by the title. The show, presented by Max Mueller Bhavan and the World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature, is about the destruction of nature by industries: it would seem that the alternative to nature being …
A DREAM blown to dust is how you could describe today"s wheezing New Bombay, the once promised green haven on the fringe of gas and smog smothered Greater Bombay. Two decades ago, the Bombay Municipal Regional Development Authority (BMRDA) had decided to develop a clean, self-sufficient residential area west of …
POLLUTION, like other disturbing facts, can be swept under the carpet. Thus it is that the first ever inventorisation of hazardous waste generation in the National Capital Region (NCR) by the Tata Risk Management Services (TRMS) has found that the area generates none! Even officials within the Central Pollution Control …
THE 2nd National Children's Science Congress (NCSC) was organised by the National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC)-network, in the last week of December 1994. With a stated objective -- to "clean up India", no less -- the congress, unfortunately, couldn't find a cleaner venue in the capital than …
MURPHY'S oft-proven first law -- "If something can go wrong, it will" -- is something which appears to have been given the go-by, on their fast-forward to striking paydirt, by the decisionmakers at the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC), if the experience at the recent blowout at Allwaram village …
With a view to check pollution and discourage thermal power plants from using coal with high ash content, the Union ministry of environment and forests is preparing draft guidelines for a tax on fly ash. The ministry is also working on a move to give environment clearance to new thermal …
WHY has Shimla, once the summer capital of the British Raj and now the refuge of escapees from the plains' scorching heat, lost its picturesque serenity? Manish Bhardwaj, 15, a high school student, gives a rapid-fire answer: "Unchecked urbanisation -- garbage piles, choked nallahs, polluted streams, broken sewers, chopped trees, …
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) is expanding its list of 17 heavily polluting industrial sectors to 24, although it has failed to enforce compliance from the units already under the highly polluting category. A recent CPCB status report on the action taken to control pollution in "problem areas" points …
TILL the other day, the Rajasthan chief minister, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, seemed to spend much of his time frozen on an anti-environmentalist platform, ranting against the Union ministry of environment and forests (MEF). Last fortnight, he seemed to have passed the megaphone to Orissa's Biju Patnaik. That both these stormy …
The car revolution has finally swept over China. The leaders of China's Communist Party have unveiled a plan to expand the automobile industry and boost private purchase of cars, once considered an aberration in the land of bicycles and handcarts. The production goal for vehicles by the end of this …
Lead-free petrol, which the ministry of environment :nd forests (MEF) is All: seeking to introduce in W, the 4 major metrop titan cities by April 1, 1995, is hazardous to health, says H B Mathur, professor,of mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. An expert on automobile pollution, …
Singapore's squeaky clean has suffered a body ith a recent govern d kclosure that the has a serious pollu 1rOhlein. In,.-nid ber, the island's cnvi ncrit ministry said that air pollution had reached an unhealthy level and advised people with serious heart and lung ailments to stay indoors. Singapore authorities, …
WHEN the birds stop chirping and go into hiding, you can expect a storm. When the ants begin to march, you know rain is on its way. In the same manner, some species of plants and animals behave in ways that warn of possible environmental damage -- as "early warning …
THIS is the 6th in the World Resources series -- which provides information on environment and development -- and has a special focus on people and the environment. These chapters deal with natural resource consumption, population and the environment, and women and sustainable development. A 2nd section has a regional …
EVER since the public interest petition filed by M C Mehta has made waves in the media, a lot of people have assumed that the Taj is under threat from industrial pollution and shifting the industries is the only solution. Scientifically, the damage from industrial pollution is yet to be …
"Green cover" -- a near-generic, near-pacifist environmental term today -- was coined at a time of bitter war, by Allied troops hiding from Japanese bombing runs in Malaya's forests in World War II. In the next great war, the Vietnam war, ironically, green cover was home to the Vietcong and …
A recent study by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has suggested that modifying and upgrading the existing machinery and technology in power plants and reducing transmission and distribution losses can ensure the availability of an additional 12,000 mw of electricity. According to the study, this will require an investment …
