Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Futala Lake’s charm fades amid neglect and poor maintenance appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 25.05.2025". The original application was registered suo-motu based on the news item titled "Futala Lake’s charm fades amid neglect …
The situation is, if anything, worse in the north Indian states like Punjab, where many industrialists acknowledge they are not even aware of the possibility of their products being toxic or of solid waste disposal norms. As Kuldip Raj, vice-president of Punjab Woolcombers Ltd, said, "This is the first time …
Storage: • The generator of hazardous wastes is allowed to store a maximum of 10,000 kg or a truck load, whichever is less, of the hazardous wastes on site for a maximum of 90 days. • The waste should be stored only in closed, specified containers in designated protected areas. …
THE concept of common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) was pushed by former environment minister Maneka Gandhi. But 5 years and vast sums of money down the line, CETPs seem to have become just another attractive official solution that never took off. The idea was to enable cash-strapped small-scale industries, which …
Industrial estates are proliferating in Gujarat and state pollution control officials admit that waste disposal has not been a priority consideration for any of them. The Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Surat industrial belt is packed with over 2,000 units in the organised sector and more than 63,000 smallscale units churning out chemicals like soda …
WHEN will we see sincere efforts to introduce discipline in the disposal of industrial waste in India? If the official interventions in environmental management in India so far are any indication, there is little cause for optimism. A strong legislation to conserve forests came only after much -- and perhaps, …
A GLOBAL ban on the export of toxic wastes now means that industrialised nations can no longer get ship them off to the Third World and sit pretty. The loopholes that had rendered the Basel Convention on the "control of trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal" a big …
IT HAS taken decades of singleminded toil for the world's leading green organisations to move centripetally from what was considered the lunatic fringe to a position of such popular power and eminence today that governments disregard their opinions only at their own risk. This is civil society at its best: …
THERE are several kinds of toxic wastes that are dumped in Asia. According to Greenpeace, among the noxious wastes that have been shipped to Asia since 1990 are aluminium, cadmium, copper, nickel, tin, zinc, other non-ferrous and ferrous metals, ash and residues, computer scrap, plastic, medical and radioactive wastes. The …
Citizens of Ratnagiri in Maharashtra have decided to revive their agitation against the Rs 700-crore copper smelting factory of Sterlite Industries India Ltd in the district. Last August, local environmentalists had formed the Ratnagiri Bachao Sangharsh Samiti, which campaigned against the unit located at Zadgaon, protesting that its operations would …
• WITH WESTERN governments trying to cut health-care costs and consequently, the pharmaceuticals market becoming more competitive, many companies including Glaxo are keen to move into untapped markets. Glaxo chief executive Richard Sykes insists that to be successful, the company must develop "innovative medicines". "Every week, 3,000 genes are being …
A SCIENTIST employed with the Girijan Cooperative Corporation Ltd in Visakhapatnam, Y Durga Prasad, has isolated the world's first biological substance, which can bind with about 18 toxic metals, many of them found in industrial wastes. Significantly, the substance, found in the seeds of a nut (Strychnos potatorum) traditionally used …
US jet engine and automobile-part manufacturer, United Technologies Corp, has been fined $5.3 million for its carelessness in handling and discharging hazardous wastes in recent years. The wastes contained solvents, paint thinners and sludge, among other toxic chemicals. Seven plants of the firm's Pratt & Whitney jet engine unit and …
IS THE Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), proponent of saffron Hindutva, turning green? In Maharashtra, the party recently led two anti-pollution agitations that have impressed even the BJP's opponents, save the ruling Congress, which dismissed the protests as an "unnecessary politicisation" of environmental issues. Both campaigns targeted new industrial projects -- …
A GLOBAL system for sustainable management of the world's fish stocks, which are being rapidly depleted by heavily subsidised national fishing fleets, is essential to prevent their extinction, participants in a recent UN conference have urged. The session in New York, a follow-up to the Earth Summit in Rio de …
TWO RUSSIAN scientists propose to get rid of radioactive waste by throwing it out of the solar system. The waste will be blasted out of the earth's atmosphere on conventional rockets and then fired out of the solar system using energy from the waste itself, according to Konversia, a Moscow-based …
WHEN RUDA Gugha of Udauna village in the Chotila taluka of Surendranagar district "spotted a tanker parked on the dry (Mahanadi) river bed in the dead of the night" in March, little did he realise the havoc that the tanker was to wring in the region. The next day, cattle …
IMPORT of waste scrap material -- some of which could be toxic -- for recycling, has created a controversy in Indonesia. Scavengers in Jakarta are complaining that the price of recycled items has fallen so low, their livelihood is threatened. Their demand for an immediate ban is supported by the …
THE PESTICIDES India Limited (PIL) factory in the Khempura area of Udaipur is the focus of a pollution controversy that some believe is now assuming political overtones. After local residents complained of the factory's indiscriminate disposal of toxic wastes and discharge of malodorous pollutants, the district collector asked the Rajasthan …
NO SOONER had the Shetland Islands oil spill been brought under control, reports came in of oil tankers running aground off Indonesia and the Nicobar islands. And it was not all that long ago, that oil wells were wrecked as a weapon of war during the fighting in the Gulf. …
