If everything goes well, the Model Colony ward of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) could become a 'model' before the other municipal wards for making use of the discarded garbage for a 'powerful' cause. The municipal body is planning to generate electricity by setting up a biogas plant that will use the garbage within the Model Colony ward as its fuel input and run the streetlights in the ward with the electricity generated.

The US Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday said it sees no reason to tell consumers to stop using products such as baby bottles made with a controversial chemical found in many plastic items. Norris Alderson, the FDA's associate commissioner for science, said although the regulatory agency is reviewing safety concerns about the chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, "a large body of available evidence" shows that products such as liquid or food containers made with it are safe.

The ambitious plan to decentralise the garbage disposal at four different places in the city received a boost with the forest department finally giving its approval to set up a garbage disposal plant in Punawale. This will enable the city to have four garbage disposal plants in different parts of the city as against the present system of the lone dumping ground at Urali Devachi village.

Non-removal of waste from the South Goa Planning and Development and the adjoining acquired land prompted some vendors to set tones of waste afire on Wednesday evening. The vendors maintained that the Margao Civic body has been irregular in clearing the waste, which gives a bad look to the mega market, visited by thousands of customers every day. This is not the first time that the Margao Civic body has failed to clear the waste from the market despite payments made by the PDA.

The tug of war between the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) and the Corporation of the City of Panjim (CCP) over "who will cap the Curca garbage dump?' may have ended but the work of capping the dump is yet to start though the monsoon is not far away. The work had to be completed before the monsoons to ensure that polluted water does not reach Curca village. The CCP which has been directed by the High Court, last week, to cover the garbage dump with tarpaulim before the monsoon of 2008, has not been able to start the work for want of funds.

The situation at the Sonsodo garbage dump yard is slowly but surely heading towards unmanageable proportions, even as Curtorim MLA Reginaldo Lourenco has threatened to stop garbage dumping at the site if the government fails to work out a solution immediately. A month have gone since Hyderabad-based Hyquip Project signed an agreement with the government to set up the garbage treatment plant at Sondoso with the in vessel technology, but the plant is yet to take shape at the yard.

Around 41,000 staff, including sanitary workers, have been trained for the purpose A STANDARD protocol on handling and safe disposal of biomedical waste will be adhered to in all the primary, secondary and tertiary care government hospitals in Tamil Nadu, said V K Subbu Raj, Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Government of Tamil Nadu. Addressing a seminar on hospital administration at the Tamil Nadu Dr MGR Medical University here on Tuesday, Subburaj said waste disposal management was crucial in the administration of hospitals.

Inability of hospital authorities in Srinagar to handle patients care properly; the hospitals have now come under scanner vis-

Volunteers clean up the plastic mess left behind by unthinking tourists and visitors. The plastic is used by KK Plastic when laying roads with plastic in the bitumen mixture.

Guwahati Press Club has decided to study the problem of garbage management in Northeast with special reference to biomedical wastes. This was stated in a press release. This is a known fact that Guwahati is the crowded city with a population of nearly 20,00,000 and produces heaps of garbages everyday. More over, the city has emerged as a health care hub for the state as well as for the seven neighbouring states serving more than three crore people. One can easily imagine the quantity of hazardous biomedical wastes that the hospitals and pathological labs produce in a single day.