How green is green?

The commonwealth Games, has the capital city of New Delhi abuzz with the word ‘green’. There is much talk of greening the games. Ministers and citizen’s alike are holding meetings to celebrate this. It seems that ‘greening’ has acquired the proportions of a virtue, and a passport of good behaviour. That is a welcome sign, for previously it was an effort to even bring such a notion to the table. However, is this real, or is this mostly ‘greenwash’ entailing superficial actions, with no real benefits? Let us see.

Over 100,000 trees have been cut for the games, leaving many streets bare and dusty. Previously soft, water absorbent earth stretches such as in flood drains (which streak through the city), grassy pavements, hedges on central aisles have been replaced by heat emitting concrete, poured mercilessly over the earth to make roads and parking lots. Large tracts of wooded areas, such as the 27.7 acres Siri Fort sports complex (Chartes Correa report to the Supreme Court of India) have been cleared to make stadiums. The riverbed has been converted from a sandy bank to athletes’ residences, metro stations, flyover stretches, power stations, bypass roads and barricaded off. Several large populations of people living in shanty towns have been put out of sight on the outskirts of the city. The Delhi Ridge forest, previously a hallowed ground, has now been dug up of the metro lines, and is being surrounded by high walls to prevent illegal entry by any destructive other!

Delhi's waste generation is higher than ever. Urban solid waste exceeds 7000 mt per day and the landfills are choking. As a remedy, the municipality wishes to convert the reserve Ridge forest into a landfill. Less than 70 % of its 60 mt of medical waste is collected or treated properly even as over 17 incinerators continue to pollute the city, all of which are located in Government Hospitals. Hazardous waste to the tune of over 5000 mt per annum continues to be produced from its large number of metal, steel, electroplating and recycling units. Over 12000 mts of e waste is recycled under very hazardous conditions each year, throwing up strong acids, heavy metals, dioxins and furans into the air and water. Now as we have seen recently, city hospitals may be throwing out their radioactive waste in scrap yards, posing a deadly danger to people. Mercury is freely available in chemical markets here, which are a tinderbox anyway. Most of its 17 sewage treatment plants work below capacity, and mix the ‘recycled’ water back into the untreated drains, only to be dumped into the now dead river Yamuna. The coliform count here exceeds all numbers and even if it is completely cleaned there is no fresh water in it anyway – only sewage.

Meanwhile those who are earning their livelihoods from recycling waste continue to be more marginalized. There is evidence of new exploitations by the companies which have taken over water collection activities through PPP arrangements, as they now wish to 'corner' the large over 10 crore rupee trade as annual trade on plastics and metals. The government cannot decide if such people provide a service to the community or not. It swings between ignoring them, or outrightly banning them. The poor are not welcome in the city. On the other hand, the city has over 50 million vehicles already, and this is a growing number. Car parking takes up more space than the non-existent pedestrian walks, and aggression on the road belays any claims of Indians being of a peace loving nature. While the elite use more than 450 liters of drinking water per day, many cannot avail of even 30 litres. The ground water table is falling rapidly. Even so the sales of bottled water at 10 rupees liter is soaring which is incomparable to the 3 rupees per thousand liters supplied by the Jal Board. Who says the city cannot afford better? The list can go on.

So how ‘green’ can a Commonwealth Games be? Energy saving and waste collection in a few buildings stadium, seems like a bad joke. Try walking on the grass during the 45 deg C mid day heat, and then hop skip and jump on the burning 'concrete'. Green is not a word to be trivialed with. It takes work to earn that 'badge'.

- Ravi Agarwal

'E' for Environment

With mega discourses on global warming and climate change dominating news broadcast, print and the web, it came as a surprise when school children responded with blank expressions at a recent interaction on environment at an English medium school in an up-market neighbourhood of South Delhi.

It was quite mellowing to see that these inquisitive students, who are going to inherit a very messed-up environment and the burden of extreme lifestyle shifts to tide-over impacts of degradation, have not been touched by a day-to-day understanding of terms like global warming, e-waste and toxics.

As one broke these concepts into manageable examples, expressions changed and questions started flowing in and two very worrying trends emerged from these queries.

First one is the dangerous lag that exists between what is packaged as education, via textbooks and knowledgebase of the teachers, and what is happening in the real world that they live and breathe in. So while the great benefits of computerisation are talked about the issue of burgeoning problem of electronic waste is missing from the educational communication, similarly while they know that infrastructure is about growth in the cities they, as yet, do not see a connect between these projects and the depleting city trees and shrinking open spaces. The list goes on.

These children are left to ask and answer on their own, as there is no systemic awareness in our schooling system going beyond textbooks and classroom period. It will, however, be unfair not to mention that the need for this connect, even though in a very academic way, is being felt and is beginning to be addressed.

Second one is a perceived disjoint between them and those who they believe are likely victims of environmental degradation. During the interaction, we screened a film on electronic waste that creates two parallel worlds: One of computer using kids and the other of poor street children who work for its recycling. A single computer has enough toxic material in it to kill 15 people and cheap recycling with bare hands and open acid burning were shown in the film.

The overwhelming message that these kids come-up with was "poor people are being forced to endure toxics exposure" and "the poor children will face ill-affects of e-waste". The fact that environment degradation will have cross-cutting impact is not clear to them; they feel there is something separating them and the poor children, perhaps there is but for how long? This sense of privilege or false security can only make things difficult for these kids. On the flip side as conversations are not centered directly on them they see issues of change as a phantom issue that is some one else's battle.

There is a need to address these issues through creative communication and perceptual verbalisation of the fast changing world, by engaging students as sensitive players who will go on to make personal and professional choices that look at issues of environment not as a distant and detached concern, but something real and personal.

It is time to introduce 'E' for environment in our educational communication.

Mrecury Spill Management Animation in Healthcare Facilities

India's proposed waste law to officially turn it into global waste destination: Environmentalists

Draft promotes waste trade over health and environment

New Delhi, 14 November, 2007: Through a jugglery of words in the draft legislation on waste, the Indian Government may pave the way for officially opening floodgates for the dumping of world's hazardous waste in the name of recycling and unleash unprecedented havoc on India's environment and health of its citizens, environmentalists have warned.

This was stated by leading global experts and civil society leaders who have been working on waste issues, in the wake of the recently publicised Draft Hazardous Materials (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2007.

Environmentalists say that the newly drafted hazardous waste management law for India seeks to undo established, science-based definitions of waste and consider waste that is being recycled somehow less hazardous than the waste being landfilled in order to curry favor with hazardous scrapping industries.

"Through a not-so-subtle mangling of international definitions for "waste", "disposal" and "safe recycling" the Indian Government has designed a veritable global waste funnel that will ensure that the world's waste will surge to our shores," said Ravi Agarwal, director of Toxics Link.

"Ironically this is all being done in the name of recycling," he quipped.

The Draft Hazardous Materials (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2007, which is now in its final stage, proposes redefining "hazardous waste" as "hazardous material". Such completely altered definitions are contrary to the international rules of the Basel Convention, which India is obliged to uphold.

"It is not only inappropriate but its illegal for India to pretend to implement the Basel Convention but utilise definitions that turn the intent of the treaty on its head, said Jim Puckett, Coordinator of the international Basel Action Network (BAN), the Convention's watchdog organisation.

Among examples of departures from the Basel Convention and international law are the following:

· India has decided that transit states do not have to receive prior informed consent for all shipments of hazardous waste.

· India has decided that dumping in rivers, oceans, and lakes, or burning waste somehow does not constitute disposal and therefore that which is dumped in aquatic environments is not waste.

· The international definition of "environmentally sound management" has been ignored in favor of a new definition of "safe for recycling" that states that as long as a material contains less than 60% contamination by a hazardous constituent, then it's safe!

· India has exempted bio-medical wastes and municipal wastes from this law yet these are meant to be covered under Basel.

· India appears to allow dioxin imports for disposal but not for recycling.

· Waste asbestos imports are banned unless they are contaminating other substances (e.g. old ships).

· Fails to implement the Ban Amendment forbidding all imports of hazardous waste from developed countries.

· Fails to recognize it is illegal to trade in waste with non-Parties of the Basel Convention such as the United States.

According to the environmental groups the draft law also changes substantially the existing hazardous waste Management and Recycling Rules, and flies in the face of Supreme Court judgments. Further it is contrary to India's constitution because (provision on the State's obligation to protect people's right to health and environment), instead of an environmental law being protective of human health and the environment, this is trade centric for hazardous waste.

This assumes significance when India is currently negotiating various economic partnerships. For example India is presently negotiating with Japan on what it calls a new-age Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

Japanese EPAs with other Asian countries consistently include toxic wastes for trade liberalization, and if wastes are considered goods it is feared they will be freely traded and India will be the recipient of Japanese waste.

Finally the environmentalists denounced the process by which this law has reached the final stages without public scrutiny.

"A major amendment of a key environmental legislation has been proposed with no discussion or consultation with civil society. Civil Society and the Judiciary have been deeply involved in this issue for over a decade-and-a-half, and ignoring their concerns is demonstrative of the manner in which this government has become representative only of a handful of influential industries," said Mr. Agarwal.

"While India still does not have capacity to deal with its internally generated wastes, it is opening up its borders for imported hazardous and electronic waste, clearly showing the distorted priorities of the Government," he added.

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Selected news

Ban on dumping solid waste in Buddha Nallah

Priyank Bharti, the acting District Magistrate, has passed prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), prohibiting people from dumping solid waste in Buddha Nallah. The acting DM said in these orders that information has been given to him that some people are dumping solid waste in Buddha Nallah, which endangers the life and health of the society at large. He said that in the interest of public safety, it is necessary to prevent the dumping of solid waste in the nallah.

Source: Indian Express, New Delhi, July 27, 2007

UPPCB gets tough on medical waste disposal

The Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB), along with the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC), is all set to crack the whip on hospitals that do not dispose of bio-medical wastes in accordance with the Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules. The UPPCB team recently visited some city hospitals and found them blatantly violating the norms. Member Secretary, UPPCB, C S Bhatt that private hospitals have been asked to make appropriate arrangements for disposal of bio-medical wastes within a month’s time. “The hospital waste, if not dumped properly, poses a major health hazard. Notices in this regard would soon be issued to hospitals. The LMC has also been asked to take stock of the situation,” said Bhatt. He, however, said, "If hospitals and nursing homes are dumping their wastes along with domestic waste, it is a matter of serious concern. I would gather information from the department and then decide on the course of action,” he said. Meanwhile, an LMC official said, “The LMC incinerator is under-utilised as the volume of the bio-waste is too little. Incinerator works only for five hours a day. It's the responsibility of the NSA and the ZHOs to check the waste being dumped by city hospitals.”

Source: India Express, New Delhi, July 27, 2007

BARC tech turns urban waste into organic manure

Kitchen waste, stale food, split milk, leftovers from hotels and vegetable refuge, which is becoming a huge and mounting burden on urban civic bodies, could no longer be a threat to the urban environment. In fact, it can be a good source of well-balanced organic manure offering excellent top soil material to the farmers, thanks to a technology developed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). If segregated well, this waste could do wonders for the farmers practicing organic farming, said Mr. Sharad P. Kale of Nuclear Agriculture and Biotechnology Division of BARC. While discussing various arguments and counter arguments on the advantages of organic food, he referred to the concerns that organic food could be less safe than non-organic food as the former increased the risk of exposure to biological contaminants and food-borne diseases.

Source: The Hindu Business Line, New Delhi, July 27, 2007

Climate panel to meet in August; help frame policy

India will move a little closer to deciding its stance on climate change ahead of United Nations –sponsored discussions this December, when an expert scientific committee meet on 6^th August in Delhi. The December meeting in Bali (Indonesia) will decide on a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2021. The protocol mandates that its signatories cut emissions in an effort to stem global warming. At the August meeting, the committee, chaired by Mr. R. Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, will discuss the country’s vulnerability to climate change, identify research areas to asses the impact of human-induced climate change and suggest measures to mitigate this. These will play a critical role in forming India’s stance for the Bali meet.

Source: Hindustan Times, New Delhi, July 27, 2007

Badal Calls For Time-bound Pollution Monitoring Policy

Punjab Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal on July 25, 2007 called for formulation of a comprehensive policy to check the pollution of rivers in the state. He asked the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) to frame and implemented guidelines in this regard and ensure regular and time bound monitoring of the anti-pollution steps. Presiding over the meeting here in Chandigarh on July 24, 2007, Badal asked the pollution board officials to install sewage treatment plants in the state. The Chief Minister asked the Chief Secretary to hold a joint meeting of the industries, local bodies and PPCB to work out the modalities to control the menace of pollution effectively because the effluents discharged in the river and drains are not treated properly thus posing a threat to both aquatic life as well as humans.

Source: Financial World, Chandigarh, July 25, 2007