OLD GOA, JULY 21

Hyderabad, July 21: Top companies such as Maytas Infra, Coromandal Fertilisers, Ramky Enviro Engineers, Delhi-based Jindal Water Infrastructure, and Bengaluru's Terra Fima Biotechnologies are vying to grab a project for segregation of garbage in Hyderabad. Several other firms from Noida, Navi Mumbai, Surat, New Delhi and Chennai are also in the reckoning.

The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is setting up the project to segregate garbage at source to keep the city environs free of toxic waste. As many as 22 companies from all over India have come forward to take up the project.

The increasing use of polythene bags are causing a serious threat to environment and creating hazards to public health in the capital city.

Shoppers are seen carrying commodities in polythene bags from markets despite a ban on it imposed by the government.

Lack of awareness among the mass on the demerits of using polythene bags and irregular application of laws are widely responsible for indiscriminate use of polythene bags in urban and rural markets, said environmental experts.

City's environment is now in dire peril due to massive use of polythene, they opined.

MARGAO, JULY 19

By Guilherme Almeida

Collecting garbage on a door-to-door basis in the Commercial Capital is likely to be a costly affair for the cash-starved Margao Municipal Council.
As if the nightmares over Sonsodo weren't enough, the Civic body may have to pool all their resources in view of recent high court directives mandating Civic bodies to undertake door-to-door waste collection in segregated manner.

Hyderabad, July 18: Majority of city hospitals are generating biomedical waste exceeding the limits prescribed by the Bureau of Indian Standards. A study by the AP Pollution Control Board found that Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences was generating the biggest amount of biomedical waste followed by Gandhi and Osmania General Hospitals.

THE government is discussing a proposal from 22,000 plastic processing units in the country to import a cheap raw material alternative

Opening and operating the nation's first nuclear waste dump will cost more than $90 billion, an Energy Department official said. The price was $58 billion in 2001, the last time the administration released an estimate for the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada. The estimate includes $9 billion already spent and covers about 100 years of operation until the dump is sealed forever. Ward Sproat, the official in charge of the project, said at a Congressional hearing that the best-case situation would result in the Yucca Mountain site opening in 2020; originally it was supposed to open in 1998.

Hundreds of pounds of garbage has washed onto Lake Michigan shores in recent days, leading to an investigation by the Coast Guard and the temporary closing of a public beach. Trash was strewn along a 10-mile stretch in Mason and Manistee Counties in the northwestern Lower Peninsula. Piles up to eight inches high were reported at a beach in the city of Manistee. Garbage also washed onto private beaches in Holland, more than 100 miles south of Manistee. The trash in Mason and Manistee Counties included medical waste like prescription drug bottles and hypodermic syringes, the authorities said.