The disposal of massive numbers of unwanted mobile phones will be a key focus of a five-day meeting on waste management which started Monday in Indonesia, organisers said.

z. Manikandan Tenders to be floated for the Rs.44-crore project once the State gives administrative sanction GIVEN APPROVAL: The proposed compost yard in Venkatamangalam near Vandalur.

A half-day workshop on "Facilitating Door to Door Collection of Segregated Waste' was conducted at Hotel Woodlands, Margao on Thursday, to coincide with "World Environment Day' by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Western Regional Centre in Goa. The interactive workshop was designed to sensitize members of Margao Municipal Council to develop a strategy for door-to-door collection of segregated waste in Margao. The workshop was attended the councilors and the staff associated with waste management.

HOTEL Raintree, a popular 5-star hotel in Chennai, was recently awarded the prestigious Golden Peacock award at a glittering function. Akash Gupta, General Manager, The Raintree Hotel, received the award from Dr Ula Ullsten, former prime minister of Sweden, and currently the Chairman, World Council for Corporate Governance. Numerous dignitaries from the worlds of industry, international affairs, ecology and eco-sensitivty were present on the occasion.

BEING green and being luxurious aren't mutually exclusive. Hotels, often accused of consuming a large amount of water and power, are going to pay more attention to environment, starting June 5, the World Environment Day . The Hotel Association of India (HAI) has asked its member hotels all over India to observe a 'Green Week.' In Chennai, at The Park and ITC Park Sheraton - the celebration will begin with the screening of Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth.' Distribution of saplings to guests and staff is the other interesting item on the menu common to all hotels during the week.

About 45 minutes north of downtown Los Angeles, a machine the size of a small truck flattens tons of food scraps, paper towels and other household trash into the side of a growing 300-foot pile. To Waste Management which operates the landfill, this is more than just a mountain of garbage. Pipes tunnelled deep into the mound extract gas from the rotting waste and send it to a plant that turns it into electricity.

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.

Waste management company Greenstar has opened a new Euro 20m recycling facility in Bray, County Wicklow. The site will divert 135,000 tonnes from landfill every year and features an automated dry mix recyclables line to automatically separate aluminium and steel cans, paper, cardboard and plastics. Greenstar says the facility will be able to process 25,000 tonnes of commercial and household waste a year.

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.

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.