E-waste in Indian soil twice the global average, says study
India may have issued directives to ban the use and manufacture of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to reduce pollution, but the use of these toxic industrial chemicals in electronic equipment for decades has contaminated country’s soil and air quality.
Analysis of soil samples from seven cities revealed that the average concentration of PCBs in Indian soil was almost twice the amount found in global background soil — at 12 ng/g (nanogram per gram) dry weight as against 6ng/g .
These persistent organic pollutants (POP) stay in the environment for longer periods, get dispersed over long distances, and accumulate in the fatty tissue of humans and animals.
Studies have also shown that long term exposure to PCB can cause cancer, birth defects and damage the central nervous system.
Researchers said informal recycling of e-waste, open burning of dumped solid waste, combustion of coal and industrial waste, ship breaking activities acts as a sink for heavy chlorine compounds. “Though the problem of PCBs is fading in developed world, developing economies are dealing with the issue as it is linked to crude e-waste recycling processes and open burning of municipal waste,” said Paromita Chakraborty, lead investigator.
India is a signatory to the Stockholm Convention, a global treaty, and has banned the import and manufacture of PCBs.
“It is for policymakers to note that despite India never having manufactured PCBs, the loads are still high. It leads to taking measures for identifying contaminated sites and remedying them to a level where they do not emit PCBs into the air,” said Ravi Agarwal, director, Toxics Link, an environment NGO.
In their study, 84 samples of surface soil up to 20 cms and air samples were collected from different sites in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Goa, and Agra along urbansuburban-rural transects.
The study found Chennai to be most contaminated in terms of PCB concentration in soil, with an informal e-waste shredding site recording maximum concentration.
Though lesser soil PCB concentration was found in New Delhi and Mumbai, the cities showed high levels in the air largely due to emission during the crude process of informal e-waste recycling.
All terror cases involving right-wing Hindutva groups will be “made to collapse” in courts as the NDA government is using probe agencies to advance its “political objective”, former home minister P Chidambaram has said.
His remarks came a fortnight after a Dewas court acquitted Sadhvi Pragya in the Sunil Joshi murder case.
Joshi was the alleged mastermind of what came to be known as “Hindu terror” that was linked to right-wing group Abhinav Bharat and some individuals associated with the RSS. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) dropped all charges against Pragya and five others in the 2008 Malegaon blast case last year. Many witnesses have turned hostile in the 2007 Ajmer Dargah and Samjhauta Express blasts cases.
Asked how the so-called Hindutva terror cases — transferred to the NIA during his tenure as Union home minister — were falling apart, Chidambaram told Hindustan Times: “It shows how the investigation agency is being used to advance their (the ruling party’s) political objective. How can witness after witness turn hostile? Is there not a single witness who will come and depose?” “If this is the truth, then take action against those officers who took the statement. It cannot be that the set of officers who recorded the statement and the set of officers, who are now watching helplessly as witness after witness turns hostile, both cannot be discharging their duties. One (set) of them has failed to do his duty. They are pursuing a political agenda. In all these cases, every case will be made to collapse.”
Chidambaram said when he was in office, he didn’t give any instruction to the NIA or whichever agency was probing. “The court is the place where the investigation must be monitored and must be guided. The court was doing its job. But the government changes, everything changes. What kind of criminal law administration is this?”