German company GIZ, which has offered to airlift the highly-dangerous toxic waste from Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant for disposal in Germany, has raised “doubts” about the logistic support facilities at Bhopal airport for handling of such sophisticated cargo to avoid any environment problem.

The Centre, which though had decided to engage GIZ for disposing the 350 tonnes of highly-dangerous toxic waste of methyl isocyanate left in the UCIL plant after the 1984 gas leak disaster, has left it to the company to make independent assessment of the airport facilities.

Pollution Control Board steps up drive on e-waste

The next time you go to buy a laptop or a hard disk at one of those swanky showrooms, chances are that the salesperson would, besides telling you the features of the device, also give you detailed instructions on how to discard the equipment and the contact details of their collection centres. If she does not do so, you might have to ask for them, because according to the E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2011,

Real time data to be displayed near monitoring stations

The State Pollution Control Board hopes to set up continuous (online) ambient air and water quality monitoring stations along the Periyar River within a month. The objective of the initiative is to scientifically analyse the source of pollution of the river besides ascertaining those responsible for such incidents. Board Chairman K. Sajeevan told The Hindu that work on establishing the stations is fast progressing. “We expect to complete the work within a month. All analysers will work round-the-clock. Real time data will be displayed at prominent public places near each station, he said.