• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Air pollution up in smaller cities last year despite lockdown: CSE

Agra: Though several big cities witnessed reduction in air pollution last year, many smaller towns and cities experienced more “toxic” air quality compared to 2019 despite lockdown and closure of industrial and other commercial activities due to Covid-19. This has been revealed in a new analysis of winter pollution by Delhi-based think tank, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), in the Indo-Gangetic plain (IGP). The 2020 average PM2.5 level in many cities has climbed up and breached average concentration recorded in 2019. Out of 25 IGP cities' data analyzed by CSE, seven recorded an increase of pollutants from 2019 level. The worst performer was Fatehabad with 34.7% increase from 2019 level, followed by Bhatinda at 17.7%, Agra 9.2%, Khanna 7.1%, Mandi Gobindgarh 5.9%, Moradabad 5.5% and Kurukshetra recorded a 0.6 % increase. Best performer was Sirsa that recorded a 43.5% decrease in PM 2.5 levels, Varanasi 31.2%, Gaya 27.4%, Muzaffarpur 14.6%, Delhi 12.8% and Hisar recorded a 12.3% reduction. Congratulations! You have successfully cast your vote Clean air gains of the lockdown and monsoon period were lost with the reopening of the economy and adverse meteorology in winter, leading to an increase in their annual average PM2.5 level, the study says. November was recorded as the “dirtiest” across most cities. As compared to the PM2.5 average in November 2019, last year, it was 310% higher in Fatehabad, 104% in Agra and 57% in Kaithal. Talking with TOI, CSE executive director, Research and Advocacy, Anumita Roy Chowdhury, said the increase in the annual average of PM2.5 level is due to a combination of meteorological conditions when air gets trapped due to low wind movement, stubble burning and local pollutants. This demands regional reforms and action to curb the pollution by adopting strategies like introducing new emission standards for vehicles, industries, scaling up public transport system, and managing waste disposal by burning, she added.

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Delhi Pollution News: प्रदूषण कम करने में इस साल प्रभावी नहीं रहा लॉकडाउन, दिल्ली-NCR की हवा नहीं हुई साफ

अध्ययन के मुताबिक, आंशिक लॉकडाउन से पीएम 2.5 प्रदूषक तत्व के स्तर में 20 फीसदी तक की कमी आई जबकि पूर्ण लॉकडाउन से इसके स्तर में 12 फ़ीसदी की और गिरावट आई. (सांकेतिक फोटो) Delhi Pollution Check: इस साल 6 अप्रैल से दिल्ली में नाइट कर्फ्यू और वीकेंड लॉकडाउन के बाद 19 अप्रैल से पूर्ण तालाबंदी की गई, फिर भी हवा की गुणवत्ता में सुधार नहीं दिखा. ताजा रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक पिछले साल की तुलना में इस बार ट्रैफिक की आवाजाही ज्यादा रही. नई दिल्ली. दिल्ली-एनसीआर में इस साल लॉकडाउन की वजह से वायु गुणवत्ता (AQI) में सुधार तो देखने को मिला लेकिन यह पिछले साल जैसा प्रभावी नहीं रहा, क्योंकि 2021 में लगा लॉकडाउन (Lockdown) पिछले साल की तुलना में छोटा और कम कड़ाई वाला था. सेंटर फॉर साइंस ऐंड एन्वायरमेंन्ट (सीएसई) के एक अध्ययन में यह बात सामने आई है. अध्ययन में बताया गया कि मौसम संबंधी स्थिति इस अंतर के लिए आंशिक तौर पर जिम्मेदार हो सकती है लेकिन यह आंकड़ा इस बात को प्रतिबिंबित करता है कि प्रदूषण नियंत्रण संबंधी कदम इस शहर और क्षेत्र में कड़ाई से नहीं उठाए गए हैं. इस अध्ययन के अनुसार 2021 में यातायात आवाजाही भी पहले की तुलना में ज्यादा है. इस साल छह अप्रैल से दिल्ली में प्रतिबंध रात्रिकालीन कर्फ्यू और सप्ताहांत में लॉकडाउन से शुरू हुई और 19 अप्रैल से पूर्ण लॉकडाउन लागू किया गया. अध्ययन के मुताबिक, आंशिक लॉकडाउन से पीएम 2.5 प्रदूषक तत्व के स्तर में 20 फीसदी तक की कमी आई जबकि पूर्ण लॉकडाउन से इसके स्तर में 12 फ़ीसदी की और गिरावट आई. लॉकडाउन से पीएम-2.5 का स्तर 35 फीसदी और कम हुआ सीएसई ने बताया, ‘‘ 2020 में आंशिक लॉकडाउन 12 मार्च से शुरू हो गया था और 25 मार्च से कड़े लॉकडाउन लागू थे, जिसे 18 मई से चरणबद्ध तरीके से हटाया गया. पिछले साल आंशिक लॉकडाउन के दौरान पीएम2.5 में 20 फीसदी की कमी आई जबकि कड़ाई से लागू लॉकडाउन से पीएम-2.5 का स्तर 35 फीसदी और कम हुआ.’

• Down To Earth

How Getting a Vaccine in India Is a ‘Privilege’ Especially For Those in Rural Areas

Indian states have been left to compete with each other in the global market for vaccine procurement. If the month of April was marked by images of endless rows of burning funeral pyres from major Indian cities, the images of floating bodies in the Ganges River near the north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in May were a grim reminder of the unchecked spread of the virus in rural India where a majority of Indians, without access to basic health care, vaccines or infrastructure, have been fighting the virus. The second surge of the virus in India has wreaked havoc in the largely unconnected and inaccessible rural areas, and according to an analysis by Down to Earth, these areas have accounted for “more than half of India’s… COVID-19 deaths” in April. There is not only a lack of information and facilities provided by the government to the rural population on how to protect themselves against the virus but also a lack of access to medical facilities or even vaccines, which had led to the rural areas being left completely vulnerable to the virus. In India, efforts to vaccinate enough people to create the much-needed herd immunity and manage the number of infections and deaths in the country during the second wave have been marked by confusion and a lack of planning by the government, especially the BJP-led government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the center that has mostly left it to the states to figure out how to vaccinate their residents. The result is that vaccinations have become a privilege that seems mostly unattainable by the poor and marginalized populations of the country. According to a doctor that I spoke with, Dr. Harjit Singh Bhatti, “it is mostly a privilege vaccine meant for the rich and influential… the system is anti-rural and anti-poor.” The question those working on the ground in India are asking is how the vaccines will reach people, especially the poor—who in most cases have no access to the internet or do not have the digital know-how to book vaccine appointments. And even those with internet access and tech-savviness still face the difficulty of trying to register for a vaccine on the government’s CoWIN website, which is reported to be difficult to navigate and subject to technical glitches and long wait times. The Privilege of Getting Vaccinated Dr. Bhatti works in a private hospital in New Delhi where he has been responsible for treating COVID-19 patients. While treating them, one thing became clear to him: the system wasn’t set up to treat the poor and the marginalized. To help this section of society, he and some other doctors have started an initiative, DoctorsonRoad for rural India, to help create awareness about COVID-19 and vaccines and also provide basic facilities for rural Indians to fight the virus. Bhatti says India’s vaccine rollout is mostly meant for the privileged and that “the system wasn’t set up for the poor people who have to walk 100 kilometers to access health care. The irony of the situation is that, even when they reach [health care facilities], there isn’t any help available because these centers in rural areas don’t have the requisite resources or manpower or are not operational,” says Bhatti, who is also the national president of Progressive Medicos and Scientists Forum. According to him, there is a lack of adequate testing taking place in rural areas, which contributes to the undercounting of cases. Furthermore, even if the tests do take place, the results can come seven to ten days later, and Bhatti says that by then a patient may have passed away from the virus—but these deaths are not included in the official COVID-19 death count due to the lag in test results. “The vaccination policy wasn’t meant for the poor, underprivileged and those living in rural areas. Look at the government’s intention. There are two vaccine manufacturers [the Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech], and Sputnik V will be manufactured by Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories for about Rs 1,000 [almost $13], and we don’t know what price they will eventually sell it for and if the [state or central] governments who procure it will bear the entire cost for it. Can a middle-class or a poor family of five in India afford to pay so much for vaccinations when they don’t have a livelihood due to lockdowns? The system is anti-rural and anti-poor,” he says. In an interview with the Economic Times published on May 15, Dr. Anurag Agarwal, the director of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology and the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics, said, “Vaccination levels… [in rural areas] are not going to be good… I am not adequately informed to comment on the rural side, in terms of personal direct knowledge or insight or access to data. I know that India has very large hinterlands, I know that facilities there are very poor. Just like any other rational person, I would worry about rural India.” Talking about the lack of awareness about how to treat the virus, Bhatti says, “There is no proper death registration in rural areas, and no proper diagnosis of the virus is taking place, so many of the deaths due to the virus are not counted into the figures.” He adds that many people living in rural areas and slums in urban centers don’t have access to masks and soap and don’t know how to isolate a person who has been infected. For most of them, isolation is a privilege they cannot afford, with many family members living together in a small room. In Manipur, a hilly state in northeastern India, Sadam Hanjabam and his team from Ya All, a nonprofit organization working with the youth and the LGBTQI community, have been trying to organize medical aid for people there through crowdfunding. He talks about the difficulty in getting to a medical facility in the face of an emergency and the lack of clarity on vaccines. “The medical clinics—which in most cases are privately owned—are located in the city center, and to get there, people in rural areas have to take some sort of public transport. But during lockdowns, public transportation is not available, and getting medical help in such a scenario is increasingly becoming a challenge.” In India, while there is no national lockdown in place presently, various states have implemented lockdown measures. Hanjabam talks of the stigma attached to getting sick with COVID-19, leading to many in rural areas hiding the fact that they are sick. “This is accounting for the rise in deaths.” “I am not vaccinated. We were told that vaccinations for [people age] 18 and above would be available by May 17, but very few slots are available [in Imphal, Manipur]. I don’t think I will be vaccinated anytime this year,” he adds. “The vaccination centers are also not properly managed. The crowding at these centers by people waiting to get vaccinated has led to fear of getting infected by the virus from visits to these vaccination centers,” says Hanjabam. According to him, since there are very few shots available per center, those in rural areas who don’t know how to book appointments have already lost hope of getting vaccinated. Prime Minister Modi, meanwhile, issued a press release on May 15 and “asked for augmentation of healthcare resources in rural areas to focus on door to door testing and surveillance.” According to Down to Earth, while more than “65 percent of India lives in rural districts, as per the World Bank… only 37 percent of beds in government hospitals are in rural India, according to the National Health Profile 2019.” In urban India, the situation is no better. Ambalika Banerjjee, a senior lawyer who lives in Mumbai, has been trying to book an appointment to get vaccinated for most of May. “Why did the government open up the vaccinations for all adults if they didn’t have sufficient vaccinations?” Banerjjee says. “I have been spending three to four hours to get an appointment without much success. The CoWIN website is hard to navigate because you can’t move away from your laptop for a moment, otherwise you have to start the login process again. The right to a vaccine is a right of every citizen; instead, it is being treated as a privilege. I am willing to pay up to Rs 900 ($12) for a shot [administered through a private hospital]. It’s not even like it is being provided for free,” says Banerjjee. The pricing of the vaccines depends on many factors including a person’s age, the type of hospital it was administered by (whether public or private), and the way in which it was procured (whether it was purchased by the center, state, or private sector, and which vaccine manufacturer sold it). The Reality of the Vaccine Rollout India started its vaccination drive in mid-January, offering it to the priority groups of frontline and health care workers. The second phase saw the vaccination of people 60 years and over and those between 45 and 59 with underlying health conditions. By April 1, vaccination had opened up to all people 45 years and above, and by May 1, the country opened up registration for vaccinations to all adults over 18, in spite of facing vaccine shortages. In fact, many states have had to shut down vaccination centers in May with the shortage persisting. Currently, the center is responsible for providing the states with 50 percent of all COVID-19 vaccine doses produced by two private Indian manufacturers: Bharat Biotech, which, along with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology, developed Covaxin; and the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, which is producing Covishield (licensed from AstraZeneca). The center bought 50 percent of the vaccine supply to offer it to states for free, leaving the other 50 percent up to states and private hospitals to buy directly from the manufacturers. Out of the 25 percent of the vaccines being procured by private hospitals, however, “very little” is reaching the rural areas, according to an analysis by the Times of India. The crippling shortage of vaccines, meanwhile, has forced state governments to float global tenders for the procurement of vaccines, resulting in states being pitched against one another to ensure that their citizens are inoculated. Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has pointed out in a tweet how this procurement strategy portrays a “bad image” of the country, saying that the process should be centralized instead. If the global community of vaccine manufacturers and countries had been approached by a united “‘India’ rather than individual states, our bargaining power” would be much greater, he further tweeted, because the central government “has much more diplomatic space to negotiate with their countries.” Indeed, Pfizer and Moderna have reportedly refused to “deal with [the] Indian states for vaccines.” India’s vaccination program is hamstrung by its lack of centralization twofold—not only by how successful the central, state, and private sector are in procuring the vaccines, but also in the pricing offered by manufacturers to each buyer. Manufacturers are quoting different prices for the vaccines to the central government, state government and private hospitals. India’s highest court has questioned the “rationale” behind this “differential vaccine pricing.” The center while responding to this has maintained that “the difference in the prices fixed for Central government, state governments and private market are because of the volumes sought by them,” Business Today reports. While the majority of states have decided to provide free vaccines to adults, those getting a shot from a private hospital will most likely have to pay out of their own pocket, even as most countries have made vaccination free for their citizens. Talking about the implications of the differential pricing or the increase in prices for vaccines being provided to state governments and private hospitals, economist R. Ramakumar told Firstpost in an interview, “It will have major implications in the way that it will push and exclude millions of poor people in India out of access to this health measure.” The central government, while facing pressure on vaccinations, has come up with a new plan where it claims that it will have 2 billion vaccines available between August and December to vaccinate the whole population by the end of 2021, which seems ambitious to say the very least. How Lack of Action Has Cost Lives As of June 1, 3.3 percent of India’s population was fully vaccinated as against 40.7 percent of the population in the U.S. or 10.5 percent of the population in Brazil. India is reporting around 3,000 deaths per day and is second only to the U.S. in the total number of COVID-19 cases that have been reported from the country so far. Despite this, the central government’s messaging has focused on controlling its image rather than on taking charge of the health crisis. It has denied its own failure and has made no effort to share useful information to prevent the spread of the virus, with India’s health minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, even telling people to eat “dark chocolate to beat COVID-19 stress.” More recently, he tweeted to support a rebuttal of a recent Lancet report criticizing the handling of the crisis by the government. The misinformation and downplaying of COVID-19 by the right-wing Modi government is similar to that of America’s former President Donald Trump, who said that people should consume disinfectants to fight coronavirus, only to later say he was being “sarcastic.” Many other parallels can be drawn regarding the handling of the COVID-19 situation by Trump and the Modi government. The state governments in America were also left pleading with the federal government for basic medical facilities, as seen in India. Much like Trump, who was against calling for a national lockdown, Modi is now averse to the idea, even as experts feel it will help curb infection rates. This is mostly due to the criticism Modi faced of calling a lockdown on short notice during the first wave. Despite receiving a clear mandate, both the leaders squandered the faith of the people who voted them to power. Meanwhile, India and its slow vaccination rollout have become a cautionary tale for the rest of the world. “The tragedy in India does not have to happen here in Africa, but we must all be on the highest possible alert,” said Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa.

• Down To Earth

CSE releases State of India’s Environment in Figures 2021

Rural India worst hit by second wave compared to urban centres, says CSE’s new data compendium The COVID pandemic has severely exposed India’s healthcare system – while the abysmal state of preparedness in urban India has been in the limelight, a more distressing scenario is emerging from the rural hinterland, says a new statistical report released here today by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Down To Earth magazine. The report — State of India’s Environment in Figures 2021 — says community health centres in rural India need 76 per cent more doctors, 56 per cent more radiographers and 35 per cent more lab technicians. The report covers a wide swathe of subjects, from air pollution and climate change to biodiversity and COVID, and from agriculture and land to water and waste. Releasing the report — which is an annual compendium of statistics on environment and development — at a webinar organised by CSE, the Centre’s director general Sunita Narain said: “There is drama in numbers, especially when these numbers give you a trend – are things getting better or worse. It is even more powerful when you can use the trend to understand the crisis, the challenge and the opportunity.” Pandemic pointers The report’s analysis of the pandemic through numbers throws up an array of other interesting facts. Says Richard Mahapatra, managing editor, Down To Earth: “One of the key pieces of information that is emerging is that in the second wave, India has been the worst hit globally and rural India has been hit more badly than our urban areas. In May this year, India alone accounted for more than half of the daily global cases on six days. The peak was due to a surge in cases in rural districts.” Adds Mahapatra: “Along with climate-related risks, infectious diseases have entered the list of major global economic threats for the first time since 2006.” Pointing to the load of biomedical waste the country is grappling with as a result of the pandemic, the report says there has been a 46 per cent increase in COVID-19 biomedical waste between April and May 2021. At the same time, treatment of this waste has dipped: in 2019, India managed to treat 88 per cent of its biomedical waste — down from almost 93 per cent in 2017. The country has managed to fully vaccinate a mere 3.12 per cent of its population, which is lower than the global average of 5.48 per cent. The economic impacts have been – and will continue to be – very severe. Says Rajit Sengupta, one of the key writers of the report: “The pandemic’s spread to fragile rural districts means that the country will take longer to recover. This is likely to slow down the GDP growth next year.” While urban unemployment rate reached almost 15 per cent in May 2021, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act implementation witnessed massive payment lags – the states and UTs of Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh registered maximum payment delays. Climate change: A danger that cannot be overlooked The CSE report lays special emphasis on climate change. Says Narain: “Grappling as we are with a debilitating pandemic, we cannot lose sight of another clear and present danger that is threatening our very survival. That danger is climate change. Our report’s data amply illustrates the magnitude of the threat.” The report points out that India recorded 12 of its 15 warmest years in the period between 2006 and 2020: it also had its warmest decade on record. Extreme weather events continued their rampage across the country, which was the fourth worst hit in the world in terms of internal displacements due to disasters. Says Dr.Narain: “Data on migrants is sparse — and so every time there is a lockdown, governments are caught unprepared by the exodus from cities. This is compounded by the fact that there is out-migration – people are leaving their homes because of many reasons of economic and ecological distress, including extreme weather and natural disasters.” She adds: “This report tells us that in 2020, 76 per cent of internal displacements in the world were triggered by climate disasters. Between 2008 and 2020, some 3.73 million people per year were displaced because of floods, earthquakes, cyclones and droughts. The map of the significant weather events of 2020 is the new cartography of the country. Then add to this the fact that governments are spending massive amounts in repairing the damage from these not-so-natural calamities and you understand how the development dividend is being squandered with every such event.” Melting glaciers have exacerbated the threat. Says Kiran Pandey, CSE’s programme director for environmental resources and the lead writer of the report: “There are 39 glaciers that have seen a significant increase in their area and are highly disaster-prone.” The country’s response seems to be lagging, finds the report. Take the case of renewable energy: India’s ambitious renewable target, which was a commendable step towards going green, has slipped. With just 55 per cent of the target met, India is nowhere close to installing 175 GW of renewable capacity by 2022. The country also has a target of setting up at least 50 solar parks by 2021-22. So far, it has not operationalised even one of them. Says Dr.Narain: “At a time and age when the quality of data available to us is usually poor – it is either missing, unavailable publicly or of questionable quality – a collection like this can be immensely helpful, especially for journalists. Improving the quality of data can only happen when we use it for policy. Take the case of the ongoing pandemic. Just consider how we have suffered in this past year because we do not have sufficient or accurate data on tests, or the number of deaths, or serological surveys, or genomic sequencing of the variants. In each case, data would have been (and is) critical for policy making.” She adds: “Data collection is important – it is part of the art of governance – but it is equally important that entire data sets are shared and worked upon so that they can be critiqued and through this process used and improved upon.”

• Down To Earth

CSE releases State of India’s Environment in Figures 2021

Rural India worst hit by second wave compared to urban centres, says CSE’s new data compendium News Stardom : Kolkata, 5th. June 2021. The COVID pandemic has severely exposed India’s healthcare system – while the abysmal state of preparedness in urban India has been in the limelight, a more distressing scenario is emerging from the rural hinterland, says a new statistical report released here today by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Down To Earth magazine. The report — State of India’s Environment in Figures 2021 — says community health centres in rural India need 76 per cent more doctors, 56 per cent more radiographers and 35 per cent more lab technicians. The report covers a wide swathe of subjects, from air pollution and climate change to biodiversity and COVID, and from agriculture and land to water and waste. Releasing the report — which is an annual compendium of statistics on environment and development — at a webinar organised by CSE, the Centre’s director general Sunita Narain said: “There is drama in numbers, especially when these numbers give you a trend – are things getting better or worse. It is even more powerful when you can use the trend to understand the crisis, the challenge and the opportunity.” Pandemic pointers The report’s analysis of the pandemic through numbers throws up an array of other interesting facts. Says Richard Mahapatra, managing editor, Down To Earth: “One of the key pieces of information that is emerging is that in the second wave, India has been the worst hit globally and rural India has been hit more badly than our urban areas. In May this year, India alone accounted for more than half of the daily global cases on six days. The peak was due to a surge in cases in rural districts.” Adds Mahapatra: “Along with climate-related risks, infectious diseases have entered the list of major global economic threats for the first time since 2006.” Pointing to the load of biomedical waste the country is grappling with as a result of the pandemic, the report says there has been a 46 per cent increase in COVID-19 biomedical waste between April and May 2021. At the same time, treatment of this waste has dipped: in 2019, India managed to treat 88 per cent of its biomedical waste — down from almost 93 per cent in 2017. The country has managed to fully vaccinate a mere 3.12 per cent of its population, which is lower than the global average of 5.48 per cent. The economic impacts have been – and will continue to be – very severe. Says Rajit Sengupta, one of the key writers of the report: “The pandemic’s spread to fragile rural districts means that the country will take longer to recover. This is likely to slow down the GDP growth next year.” While urban unemployment rate reached almost 15 per cent in May 2021, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act implementation witnessed massive payment lags – the states and UTs of Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh registered maximum payment delays. Climate change: A danger that cannot be overlooked The CSE report lays special emphasis on climate change. Says Narain: “Grappling as we are with a debilitating pandemic, we cannot lose sight of another clear and present danger that is threatening our very survival. That danger is climate change. Our report’s data amply illustrates the magnitude of the threat.” The report points out that India recorded 12 of its 15 warmest years in the period between 2006 and 2020: it also had its warmest decade on record. Extreme weather events continued their rampage across the country, which was the fourth worst hit in the world in terms of internal displacements due to disasters. Says Dr.Narain: “Data on migrants is sparse — and so every time there is a lockdown, governments are caught unprepared by the exodus from cities. This is compounded by the fact that there is out-migration – people are leaving their homes because of many reasons of economic and ecological distress, including extreme weather and natural disasters.” She adds: “This report tells us that in 2020, 76 per cent of internal displacements in the world were triggered by climate disasters. Between 2008 and 2020, some 3.73 million people per year were displaced because of floods, earthquakes, cyclones and droughts. The map of the significant weather events of 2020 is the new cartography of the country. Then add to this the fact that governments are spending massive amounts in repairing the damage from these not-so-natural calamities and you understand how the development dividend is being squandered with every such event.” Melting glaciers have exacerbated the threat. Says Kiran Pandey, CSE’s programme director for environmental resources and the lead writer of the report: “There are 39 glaciers that have seen a significant increase in their area and are highly disaster-prone.” The country’s response seems to be lagging, finds the report. Take the case of renewable energy: India’s ambitious renewable target, which was a commendable step towards going green, has slipped. With just 55 per cent of the target met, India is nowhere close to installing 175 GW of renewable capacity by 2022. The country also has a target of setting up at least 50 solar parks by 2021-22. So far, it has not operationalised even one of them. Says Dr.Narain: “At a time and age when the quality of data available to us is usually poor – it is either missing, unavailable publicly or of questionable quality – a collection like this can be immensely helpful, especially for journalists. Improving the quality of data can only happen when we use it for policy. Take the case of the ongoing pandemic. Just consider how we have suffered in this past year because we do not have sufficient or accurate data on tests, or the number of deaths, or serological surveys, or genomic sequencing of the variants. In each case, data would have been (and is) critical for policy making.” She adds: “Data collection is important – it is part of the art of governance – but it is equally important that entire data sets are shared and worked upon so that they can be critiqued and through this process used and improved upon.”

• Industrial Pollution

Delhi govt moves SC seeking closure of 10 polluting thermal power plants in city's vicinity

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government on Thursday said it has filed a petition in the Supreme Court, seeking closure of 10 coal-fired power plants in the vicinity of the city using outdated polluting technology. The 10 thermal power plants in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh have been contributing significantly to air pollution in Delhi-NCR, Environment Minister Gopal Rai said. The Delhi government had written to the Central government requesting their cooperation on pollution from these TPPs, but "no help has been received so far. We hope the Supreme Court will take necessary steps and direct closure of these plants on an urgent basis", he said in a statement. The 10 power plants are - Dadri NCTPP, Harduaganj TPS, GH TPS (Lehra Mohabbat), Nabha TPP, Ropar TPS, Talwandi Sabo TPP, Yamunanagar TPS, Indira Gandhi STPP, Panipat TPS and Rajiv Gandhi TPS. A 2018 study by the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and the Automotive Research Association of India says 60 per cent of the PM 2.5 pollution in Delhi originates from sources outside the city, it said. Various studies have highlighted the effects of the pollutants from such coal-fired power plants on the health of communities. The ill-effects are more pronounced for vulnerable individuals, children, pregnant women, the elderly, and persons suffering from asthma and lung diseases, the Delhi government said in the statement. On April 1, the Union Environment Ministry had issued a notification with amended rules allowing thermal power plants within 10 kilometers of the National Capital Region (NCR) and in cities with more than 10 lakh population to comply with new emission norms by the end of 2022. It had revised emission norms for particulate matter (PM), sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen for TPPs in December 2015, requiring them to install emission control systems by December 2017. The deadline was pushed to December 2022 for all the power stations in the country in view of implementation issues and challenges. However, power stations in the national capital region were required to comply with the revised norms by December 2019. According to the new notification, non-compliance by these TPPs will not lead to the closure of the polluting units but they would continue to pollute subject to the payment of penalty, the Delhi government said in the statement. According to Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), TPPs account for more than 60 per cent of the total industrial emissions of particulate matter; 45 per cent of SO2; 30 per cent of NOx; and more than 80 per cent of mercury, in the country. These are also responsible for 70 per cent of the total freshwater withdrawal by all industries, as per an analysis by the green think tank. A recent compliance report by CSE showed that out of the 12 power plants located around Delhi, SO2 control technology was available only in two plants. According to a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the delay in installation of the SO2 and NOx control facilities are leading to more than 13 deaths and a loss of Rs 19 crore daily in the region around Delhi-NCR at 2018 operational levels, it added.

• Clean Air & Sustainable Mobility

Delhi breathes easy as Covid-19 lockdown lowers pollution levels again

Due to a lockdown implemented during the second wave of Covid-19 starting mid-April, Delhi's air quality improved and was similar to that of 2020. Covid-19 lockdown in the national capital may not be good news for many but it has definitely helped clear the air in Delhi. Due to closure of markets, malls, industries, and construction works during the second wave of Covid-19 starting mid-April, the air quality this year is similar to that of last year, when a nation-wide lockdown was implemented in March. The average PM2.5 for May of both the years is almost identical at about 55-56 ug/m3. However, this value is about 42 per cent lower than the value in May 2019, when there was no lockdown. In May 2019, the average PM2.5 level recorded was 95 ug/m3, suggesting that lockdown had a significant impact on reducing Delhi’s PM 2.5 level. Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5) describes fine inhalable particles, with diameters that are generally 2.5 micrometers and smaller. If we dig deeper into the data, some more interesting findings come to the fore. The air in 2020 is almost 33 per cent cleaner than 2019 and 2021 if we compare the overall average of pollution levels for the first five months from January to May. The average PM2.5 for the first five months (Jan to May) in 2021 is 121ug/m3. This is 33% higher than the corresponding period in 2020 when it was recorded at 91 ug/m3 and almost identical to the pre-pandemic year 2019 level when the average PM2.5 level was recorded at 122ug/m3. The concerning point is that this average is higher this year despite the lockdown in April-May. Which means, if the lockdown would not have happened this year, then the average air quality for the first five months could have been worse. Anumita Roy Chowdhary, Executive Director, Research and Advocacy with Center for Science and Environment (CSE) said, "It was a much-needed relief for the Delhi air in the form of lockdown. The first three months of 2021 were more polluted compared to the first three months of previous three years. The average level of PM2.5 concentration was 204 ug/m3 in January, 159 ug/m3 in February, 100 ug/m3 in March, but it came down significantly to 89 ug/m3 in April and 55 ug/m3 in the month of May." A more granular look at the weekly data for the year shows that the air in February and March this year was 20% dirtier than what was observed in 2019. Even though in 2020, lockdown was implemented at the end of March, the first three months were much cleaner in comparison to 2019 and 2021.

• Director General Office

Editor's Choice : The real oximeter

What we need is an evergreen revolution that secures livelihood, provides for energy security and combats climate change CELEBRATING WORLD Environment Day in the time of an ongoing horri�c health pandemic is di�cult to contemplate. In this time of immense human grief and loss, what does the environment even count for? But take a moment to re�ect. The most important element that we gasped for in the past month was oxygen. Think of the hours and days we spent �nding oxygen for our loved ones; how we saw patients collapse and die because hospitals did not have oxygen in the tanks; how the courts stepped in to regulate the transportation of oxygen from industries across the country; how we learnt about the business of oxygen concentrator—a machine that sucks in air and gives us oxygen on demand. Our desperation cannot be recounted without pain. We saw the gasp for each breath—and just how precious it is. This then is what we must remember this World Environment Day. The oxygen that we get from nature is about increasing green cover and ensuring that our air—our every breath—is not polluted. Something we talk glibly about and yet discount with our next move. The theme of this year’s World Environment Day, celebrated every year on June 5, is ecosystem restoration. Increasing the tree density and repairing the ecosystem health means the world will sequester carbon dioxide— that is �lling up our atmosphere and leading the world to an inexorable downward spiral of climate change impacts—and release oxygen. It’s a win-win. But what we need to understand is that planting trees or restoring ecosystems will require us to �rst restore our relationship with nature and society. The fact is trees are about land—who owns it; who protects and regenerates it, and who has the rights over the produce. In India, the forest department has the “ownership” of vast areas of common forest land. But countries like India do not have “wilderness”. Instead, we have habitats where people coexist with wild animals in forests. These are the same forest districts classi�ed as the most backward and poorest. It is also a fact that using all the legal and administrative, and sometimes, muscle power, the country’s forest department has kept the tree cover somewhat intact. It works hard every day to keep people and their animals out. It shu�es �les between the bottom rung of guards and the top bureaucrats to minimise the cutting of trees for “development” projects—from mining to dams. But “growing” trees needs people to take ownership of its management; so that livestock is kept out; so that the saplings survive. More importantly, trees have a value—whether for their ecosystem services or for timber—which needs to be paid to the grower. This would then make for a tree-based renewable future—where timber can be used for making houses and wood for generating energy. This will be an evergreen revolution that puts money in the hands of the poor; secures livelihoods; and at the same time provides for energy security and combats climate change. Today the entire world is talking about nature-based solutions—what I have described above—but without putting the poor community at the centre of the solution. The reason is not di�cult to understand. It is about the political economy of land tenure; the power of the most voiceless and marginalised; and about the cost of growing trees when people matter. In this scheme the value of land and labour needs to be paid for, not in terms of the cheapest options for mitigating carbon dioxide from the air but in terms of livelihoods that this solution will provide. This will make the entire idea of buying cheap carbon o�sets unfeasible. Then, of course, there is the challenge when with every breath we inhale poison and not oxygen. We discuss this every year, when winter comes and the pollution gets trapped in the heavy air and moisture. We feel it then. We scream. But then we forget. So, just as winter ended this year, the Indian government decided to change the rules for coal-based thermal power plants to give them a licence to pollute. Simply, it said, you can pay for noncompliance and this penalty will be lower than what you would spend on pollution control equipment. The rules are oxygen for the power companies and death by breath for the rest of us. The fact is our oxygen cannot be secured in a cylinder or by an oxygen concentrator machine that I suspect every rich Indian household will now buy and keep. It cannot even be secured by the air puri�er that we already have bought and installed in our houses and o�ces. Instead, oxygen needs us to value it as the most important and critical life-support system of our world. So, this World Environment Day, when the ravages of the pandemic have left us angry and shattered, let’s not beat around the bush any more. We know today, more than ever before, that talking the talk does not save lives. We need to walk the talk. The oxygen in this battle for a greener and more inclusive tomorrow is our common anguish—this is our �ght for survival. Nothing less. (downtoearth.org.in) (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/) DTE @sunitanar

• Industrial Pollution

Delhi Govt Wants SC to Close 10 ‘Outdated’ Thermal Power Plants Near the City

New Delhi: The Delhi government has filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking closure of 10 coal-fired power plants in the city’s neighbourhood. These plants, the government has said, use outdated, polluting technology. The 10 thermal power plants in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have been contributing significantly to air pollution in Delhi-NCR, environment minister Gopal Rai said. The Delhi government had written to the Central government requesting their cooperation on limiting pollution from these thermal plants, Rai said in a statement, but “no help has been received so far”. “We hope the Supreme Court will take necessary steps and direct closure of these plants on an urgent basis,” he continued. The 10 power plants are Dadri NCTPP (thermal power plant) Harduaganj TPS GH TPS (Lehra Mohabbat) Nabha TPP Ropar TPS Talwandi Sabo TPP Yamunanagar TPS Indira Gandhi STPP Panipat TPS, and Rajiv Gandhi TPS. A 2018 study by the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and the Automotive Research Association of India says 60% of the PM2.5 pollution in Delhi originates from sources outside the city, the Delhi government said. Various studies have highlighted the effects of the pollutants from such coal-fired power plants on the health of communities. The ill-effects are more pronounced for vulnerable individuals, children, pregnant women, the elderly and persons suffering from asthma and lung diseases, the government’s statement continued. The Delhi government statement also pointed to the changing compliance guidelines for thermal power plants. On April 1, the Union environment ministry had issued a notification with amended rules allowing thermal power plants within 10 km of the National Capital Region (NCR) and in cities with more than 10 lakh population to comply with new emission norms by the end of 2022. Earlier, the Centre had revised emission norms for particulate matter, sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen for thermal power plants in December 2015, requiring them to install emission control systems by December 2017. “However, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) arbitrarily extended the deadline to 2022. Further, according to the new notification, non-compliance by these power plants will not lead to closure of polluting units but they would continue to pollute subject to payment of a mere penalty amount,” the statement reads, according to Indian Express. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) had earlier found that thermal power plants account for more than 60% of the total industrial emissions of particulate matter, 45% of SO2, 30% of NOx and more than 80% of mercury in the country. These are also responsible for 70% of the total freshwater withdrawal by all industries. A recent compliance report by CSE showed that out of the 12 power plants located around Delhi, SO2 control technology was available only in two plants. According to a report by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the delay in installation of the SO2 and NOx control facilities are leading to more than 13 deaths and a loss of Rs 19 crore daily in the region around Delhi-NCR at 2018 operational levels, the government said in its statement.

• Sustainable Mobility

Fuel efficiency hero in race to net carbon zero

The transportation sector as a whole is facing a unique challenge — the problem of plenty. While it took 60 long years to get the first 100 million vehicles in India, the next 100 million became a reality in just 6-8 years. Therefore, orchestrating urban mobility is one of India’s biggest hurdles now. Estimates by the IEA (International Energy Agency) indicate that vehicle ownership has nearly tripled over the last decade. The urban transport network in most major Indian cities is close to the breaking point. Traffic congestion and air pollution-related health issues have become the order of the day. Anumita Roychowdhury, Executive Director — Research and Advocacy, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a public interest research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, says: “Environment and public health are development and market issues as well. These concerns today are going to have a major transforming effect on the global market. We expect to see a disruptive change in the automotive industry, globally.” The recent UN statement indicates that close to 115 countries have already pledged to carbon neutrality by 2050. Net zero has become quite a buzz word and Anumita expects this to “have a strong bearing on the automotive sector. This translates into 50 percent of world’s GDP and half of global CO2 addition. So, imagine the scale of market that are going to be impacted as a result.” India cannot remain insular to these aspects as it moves towards the next milestone on the emission roadmap. CSE's executive director feels, “India needs public and policy understanding on how to gain an edge in this change of scale (17 countries have already announced 100 percent zero emission vehicle target and phasing out of IC engines by 2040-2050). Climate change and impact of air pollution on public health globally are going to no doubt set new terms for the global market and we are part of it. So that’s the context we should keep in mind when we talk of the next trajectory from BS VI onwards.” So, what's the road ahead? What next after BS VI? April 2021 marked a year of BS VI in India. While the industry achieved this in record time, what bothers many is whether the technology leapfrogging helped the core objective of sustainable mobility. Anumita says the BS VI transition in India has instilled a great sense of confidence. “This has enabled big improvement in emissions from new vehicle fleets in India and a move up the technology ladder along with narrowing of the gap between petrol and diesel vehicles. It has enabled adoption of more stringent emission norms, particularly for diesel. BS VI adopted in 2020 is really not the final goal. The 2023 post BS VI reforms package is crucial. That will be an exercise in making BS VI itself more exacting. It will enable adoption of real world emission norms.” For the first time in India, the focus is now shifting to real world emissions. “In a way, we see a paradigm shift in the manner regulations are going to change. With that, we have now got new-generation technology and advanced emission control systems, which are coming along with the BS VI technology,” Anumita adds. She further emphasises the need for stricter norms as she qualifies India Auto Inc's regulation journey thus far as more of a “missed opportunity”. According to her, standards are meant to push the envelope but “the first target was so easy; industry barely had to do anything to meet that target. They even exceeded the target by a significant margin. When you look at the next standards, in moving from 129 gm of CO2 emission to 113 gm, it essentially aims to reduce emission by about 2.65 percent every year. An estimate between 2012 and 2016, by ICCT, has shown that on an average, the industry had already achieved 3.4 percent improvement annually. So, the targets are actually lower than what the industry has already achieved. After meeting the last set of standards in 2020, they barely require another 1.6 percent improvement a year to get to the 2022 targets.” This, she highlights, is the root of the problem because “if your requirements are so low, it does not push you to advance technology to reduce the carbon impact of motorisation.” Better technology adoption will no doubt result in better efficiency gains and Anumita points out the need to actively include two-wheelers and commercial vehicles. Speaking specifically about two-wheelers, she believes, “India has a huge advantage and opportunity to adopt fuel economy regulations.” Even though individually per unit, they use lesser fuel compared to other vehicles but “given the sheer volume and number, their demand for petrol is also enormous.” As a result, Anumita sees a clear advantage in adopting fuel economy standards for two-wheelers and CVs, especially heavy-duty ones. “International Energy Agency projections indicate that the overall transport sector fuel demand in India is going to grow significantly by 2040 and a considerable share of that will be from CVs with all the highway development that is happening. So, the heavy-duty vehicle segment is going to have enormous impact on oil demand. And they are major guzzlers. That’s why we need fuel efficiency standards for all of these very quickly, but also meaningfully.” Role of CAFE in accelerating tech transition In a way, regulation matters a lot in defining the terms of technology development. Therefore, “if that benchmark is made more stringent, then that will force improvement in technology. The most recent example is BS VI. When the regulations becomes exacting, the change is going to be about real-world emissions.” She feels OEMs proving emission performance based on the real-world conditions will be a game- changer, “Now they have to ensure the durability of their emission control systems in their vehicles. This is happening for the first time in India. That's why the 2023 reforms are so important. All of these, in combination, are supposed to become more exacting and technology forcing.” But given the cost involved and the exacerbation of the slowdown in the auto industry due to Covid, there is a growing demand from many quarters to delay it. However, Anumita does not think that is viable, “This is really not the time for us to delay our roadmap. The world is changing very fast. . . the sooner we catch up and lead, the better for us.” “The government is giving production-linked incentives to the industry. But these production-linked incentives are industry's own corporate strategy; all of these will have to come together for a green recovery strategy. Instead of delaying it, find a method and a way to stay on course. Look at Europe . . . it is so much on course and electrification is taking off because of the fuel efficiency regulations,” she adds, while explaining the role of emission in driving technological innovation to achieve it. Affordability and business sense are the drivers of EV adoption, which is why globally EVs are being promoted with state subsidies. Why electrification? Decarbonisation of future mobility is closely linked with electric mobility. —“Electrification is inevitable for various reasons,” says Anumita. As globally, the potential of IC engines is getting closer to the saturation point, any incremental tightening of emission involves a huge cost factor. In comparison, though the upfront cost of EVs is relatively high, the incremental cost of exacting tightening standards in conventional ICEs, tilts the balance in favour of EVs. “If tailpipes can achieve zero emission, you are reducing enormous emission in cities,” she explains. However, affordability and business sense are other important factors. Anumita reasons that this is one of the reasons why world-over electric vehicles are being promoted with state subsidies. But that said, she adds, “Emerging data indicates that operational and maintenance cost of electric vehicles is much lower. The battery cost is critical in the electric vehicles and scale can bring down battery cost significantly. Ultimately, it is the TCO (total cost of ownership) of the vehicle is what matters.” According to her, “The devil is in the design. What standards you set for fuel efficiency, will set the target for electrification.” Old vehicles and scrappage The other key culprit in the growing carbon footprint across the automobile industry are the older vehicles and lack of appropriate infrastructure to dispose them off. In the past few months, the finer details of the scrappage policy have been announced and a few companies like Mahindra CERO have begun operations. However, Anumita highlights the potential problem areas in the guidelines. “There is no clear mandate at the moment and there are lot of leakages. There is no clear guideline about how end-of-life vehicles need to identified and scrapped. There is not much clarity on the exact extent of the implementation of a central policy by the state. We had hoped that this will be designed as a stimulus policy, especially for old commercial vehicles — trucks and buses — and expected a central incentive and targeted policy for the heavy-duty sector. There could have been some method of linking industry participation of scrappage of end-of-life passenger vehicles and two-wheelers with electrification. That is what I feel is an opportunity missed, especially at a time when we are looking at green recovery. " IEA projections indicate that the overall transport sector fuel demand in India is going to grow significantly by 2040 and a considerable share of that will be from CVs with all the highway development that is underway across the country. Looking ahead Ground vehicles together contribute to more than 75 percent of transport emission and that in itself contributes nearly 17 percent of the world’s energy-related greenhouse gas emission. The question therefore is how can India Auto Inc make mobility a lot greener than now? Anumita believes, “The whole environment issue is no longer a soft, fringe issue. It is a serious, global development and market issue today. The moment you start setting a target for net zero and completely phasing out IC engines, it will surely have a transformative impact.” She considers it important for Indian industry to realise and understand the opportunity that lies in new-generation regulations, “The focus therefore has to be on- Need for far more transparency in vehicle performance and more consumer information. Understand the value of combining emission and fuel economy standards. Zero emission transition and trajectory for electrification need to be part of a focussed industrial policy. Government needs to be a prime mover in enabling the mechanism.” She surmises the need for proactive all-inclusive and comprehensive policies that combine market requirements with developmental issues, “an industrial agenda can no longer be delinked from the broad agenda for the future.” As former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon famously said, “We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health . . . Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.”

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

World Environment Day: PPE, masks and shields… pandemic detritus adds to waste crisis

By Trisha Mukherjee New Delhi, Jun 4 (PTI) The crisis of plastic and biomedical waste is deepening with each Covid case as millions of people use and throw face shields, surgical masks, gloves and PPE suits, once used primarily in hospitals and now an indispensable part of everyday life. The movement against plastic has taken a battering in the pandemic with dependency on single-use plastic surging and households contributing to the tonnes of biomedical waste being generated, worried experts said ahead of World Environment Day on Saturday. The detritus of the pandemic can be seen everywhere – PPE suits lying discarded behind hospitals and crematoriums, surgical masks and shields being thrown as part of household waste and, of course, sanitiser bottles, gloves and the like found in street corner garbage dumps. With waste disposal mechanisms less than perfect in India and the ‘plastic footprint’ becoming larger by the day, concerns on plastic waste choking the planet and worries about safety are mounting. “There has been a general increase and since it is a crisis situation, we are not thinking of plastic but general prevention. The focus is no longer plastic, so that is a problem,” Ravi Agarwal, founder director of the environmental NGO Toxics Link, told PTI. “A lot of biomedical waste like masks and PPE kits are also being generated in general homes now. So that is becoming a big problem. These things are finding their way across ecosystems. A lot of these things like masks can be seen on beaches, in coral reefs etc,” he added. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India produced 45,308 tonnes of COVID-19 biomedical waste between June 2020 and May 10, 2021, an average daily generation of 132 tonnes of COVID-19 related waste. This is in addition to the 615 tonnes of biomedical waste a day being produced before COVID-19, amounting to a 17 per cent increase in biomedical waste generation solely because of the pandemic. Besides Covid-related waste from hospitals and homes with positive patients, there is ‘pandemic promoted’ waste from non-Covid homes, including not just protective gear but also plastic packaging with more and more people using home deliveries for essential and non-essential shopping. Under the existing waste disposal rules, biomedical waste is segregated into four categories — Yellow (highly infectious waste such as human, animal, anatomical, soiled), Red (contaminated recyclable waste generated from disposable items like tubing, bottles tubes, syringes), White (waste sharps, including needles, syringes with fixed needles), and Blue (broken or discarded and contaminated glassware, including medicine vials). Considered potentially infectious, all Covid waste, irrespective of content, is tagged Yellow and incinerated. On the face of it, India seems well equipped to handle this extra load of biomedical waste with a national incineration capacity of 800 tonnes a day. But experts said there are other factors that needed to be taken into account. “Like the fact that due to the health crisis, non-Covid biomedical waste generation has also gone up. Secondly, these incinerators are meant for waste that has been segregated. But since Covid waste is not being segregated, the process compromises the efficiency of the incinerators,” said Siddharth Singh, deputy programme manager at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Whether emissions from these plants are causing further pollution remains unclear with flawed and non-functional monitoring systems at most plants. “We never know the extent of pollution we are doing... we are converting our land based pollution to water or air pollution. That’s what we end up doing,” Singh told PTI. Moreover, while national incineration capacity seems sufficient, the waste generation to incineration capacity ratio might not be met for individual states, he said. For instance, Maharashtra reported a 45 per cent increase in the volume of its biomedical waste in May last year, with daily generation going from 62,000 kg per day before Covid to 90,000 kg per day, according to a report by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board. To address this problem, the CPCB in July last year in its revised guidelines for Covid waste management said states could approach the Environment Ministry’s ‘Hazardous Waste Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities’ to deal with their Covid biomedical waste if it could not manage the load. Atin Biswas, programme director, Municipal Solid Waste at CSE, pointed out that while there were mechanisms in place, there was very little data on how many states had actually availed, or even knew of the facility. Notwithstanding the unprecedented health and environment crisis, the experts said there are ways to minimise the damage. To begin with, Singh said individuals needed to consciously reduce their plastic footprint. “We have always looked at the plastic problem in terms of recycling, but the focus should be on how to minimise it. Waste management is to reduce and manage,” he said. For Agarwal, proper disposal is key to coming one step closer towards solving the problem. “At an individual level we have a big responsibility in how we dispose of things. It has to start at the individual level and the government also has to meet the requirement. It’s cooperation between the two. It cannot be done by one or the other. “The role of municipalities becomes very critical here because waste collection from Covid homes is supposed to be done separately from general homes, but in many parts of the city (Delhi) that is not happening,” he said. CSE’s Biswas agreed. He said waste management is indeed a “shared responsibility”, and a “comprehensive communication strategy” is important to achieve the goal of reducing plastic pollution. “Waste management is a behavioural challenge. Government has always perceived this to be an engineering problem and has been very poor at communication. Had the government invested in better communication, we would have less waste to deal with in the first place,” he said. “We do need a very comprehensive strategy and a comprehensive roadmap if we have to achieve certain milestones,” Biswas added. (June 5 is celebrated as World Environment Day)

• Sustainable Food Systems

Food brands that were labelled unsafe in the past

Is the food you consume safe? Here is a list of popular food brands that have at some point of time landed in controversy after failing safety norms of various countries. Media reports recently carried reports of the world's largest food company Nestle acknowledging that more than 60 per cent of its mainstream food and drinks products do not meet a recognised definition of health The company presentation accessed by the Financial Times noted that only 37% of Nestle's food and beverages by revenues, excluding specialised medical nutrition and pet food, achieved a rating over 3.5 under Australia's health star rating system. However, this is not the first time companies have failed to lives up to acceptable health standards. Here are a few more examples of when big brands failed basic safety checks. Brand: Nestle Product: Baby Milk Alternatives Nestle got into huge trouble when it was accused of selling unhealthy alternatives for baby milk. They were accused of unethical advertisement of the product. Though they won a related lawsuit in 1974, the product was boycotted in America, New Zealand, Canada, Australia and Europe. Even now the boycott remains in certain parts though the company claims that the product is safe for consumption as per all standards. Brand: Quaker Product: Quaker Oats Back in 1950, Quaker Oats did a horrible experiment. Along with researchers from MIT, Quaker in America fed children radioactive oats for research to prove the nutrients in Quaker oatmeal travel throughout the body. Brand: Kellogg's Product: Cereals Kellogg's had to recall four varieties of its cereals in 2010 in America, because of a strange smell that was emanating from its boxes. Later, the smell was attributed to a compound leakage. The variants that were recalled were Corn Pops, Froot Loops, Apple Jacks and Honey Smacks. Brand: Burger King Product: Beef Patty In the United Kingdom, the fast-food chain Burger King got into trouble when its products were tested in 2013. The beef patties showed that they contained horse meat. The company had initially rejected the charges but later blamed it on their supplier and dropped Silvercrest Foods as a supplier. Brand: Haldiram Products: Cookies, biscuits and wafers US FDA had in 2017 rejected cookies, biscuits and wafers by Haldiram because they contained pesticides, mould and bacteria. They deemed the products unfit for human consumption. Brand: Starbucks Products: Hazelnut syrup, Caramel Sauce In India, coffee chain Starbucks faced the heat in April 2017 when 32 of their ingredients were ruled out by the Food Safety Standards Authority of India. Among them were their popular hazelnut syrup and caramel sauce. They immediately started working on the same and found replacements which suited the Indian standards. Brand: Cadbury Product: Dairy Milk In Mumbai, many customers had in 2003 complained that their Dairy Milk chocolates contained worms. This forced the Maharashtra FDA to seize all stocks manufactured in the company’s Pune plant. So, Cadbury now revamped their packaging to restore their image and made a comeback. Brand: PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Products: Pepsi and Coca-Cola In 2006, Pepsi and Coca-Cola got banned in many Indian states after there were complaints that these contained pesticides. There were also complaints of batteries and other foreign objects being present in these drinks which led to severe suspicions about their safety. Brand: Patanjali Product: Atta Noodles Patanjali Atta Noodles was banned in India in April 2016 for containing excessive quantities of lead. The Food Safety and Drugs Administration in Meerut carried out tests which found that Patanjali Atta Noodles were sub-standard and the ash content tastemaker was more than three times the prescribed limits. Even Patanjali's Divya Amla Juice and Shivlingi Beej were considered substandard by Haridwar's Ayurveda and Unani Office. Brand: Nestle Product: Maggi Maggi was banned in India in 2015 because it contained way more lead and monosodium glutamate or MSG than the prescribed limits. Maggi said that their product was safe to consume, and the limits should be measured after being diluted and not otherwise. However, they later worked on a slight formula change and a rigorous advertisement campaign to rebrand itself. Brand: Multiple Product: Honey An investigation conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment had in 2020 revealed the rampant adulteration in honey sold by major Indian brands including Dabur, Patanjali, and Emami. All these brands had adulterated their honey with sugar syrup. At a time when honey was being extensively consumed for its health benefits, the news shocked many customers.

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

World Environment Day 2021: COVID-19 pandemic detritus adds to waste crisis

The movement against plastic has taken a battering in the pandemic with dependency on single-use plastic surging and households contributing to the tonnes of biomedical waste being generated, worried experts said ahead of World Environment Day on Saturday. The detritus of the pandemic can be seen everywhere - PPE suits lying discarded behind hospitals and crematoriums, surgical masks and shields being thrown as part of household waste and, of course, sanitiser bottles, gloves and the like found in street corner garbage dumps. With waste disposal mechanisms less than perfect in India and the 'plastic footprint' becoming larger by the day, concerns on plastic waste choking the planet and worries about safety are mounting. "There has been a general increase and since it is a crisis situation, we are not thinking of plastic but general prevention. The focus is no longer plastic, so that is a problem," Ravi Agarwal, founder director of the environmental NGO Toxics Link, told PTI. "A lot of biomedical waste like masks and PPE kits are also being generated in general homes now. So that is becoming a big problem. These things are finding their way across ecosystems. A lot of these things like masks can be seen on beaches, in coral reefs etc," he added. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India produced 45,308 tonnes of COVID-19 biomedical waste between June 2020 and May 10, 2021, an average daily generation of 132 tonnes of COVID-19 related waste. This is in addition to the 615 tonnes of biomedical waste a day being produced before COVID-19, amounting to a 17 per cent increase in biomedical waste generation solely because of the pandemic. Besides Covid-related waste from hospitals and homes with positive patients, there is 'pandemic promoted' waste from non-Covid homes, including not just protective gear but also plastic packaging with more and more people using home deliveries for essential and non-essential shopping. Visas of foreign nationals stranded in India due to COVID-19 deemed valid till Aug 31Visas of foreign nationals stranded in India due to COVID-19 deemed valid till Aug 31 Under the existing waste disposal rules, biomedical waste is segregated into four categories - Yellow (highly infectious waste such as human, animal, anatomical, soiled), Red (contaminated recyclable waste generated from disposable items like tubing, bottles tubes, syringes), White (waste sharps, including needles, syringes with fixed needles), and Blue (broken or discarded and contaminated glassware, including medicine vials). Considered potentially infectious, all Covid waste, irrespective of content, is tagged Yellow and incinerated. On the face of it, India seems well equipped to handle this extra load of biomedical waste with a national incineration capacity of 800 tonnes a day. But experts said there are other factors that needed to be taken into account. "Like the fact that due to the health crisis, non-Covid biomedical waste generation has also gone up. Secondly, these incinerators are meant for waste that has been segregated. But since Covid waste is not being segregated, the process compromises the efficiency of the incinerators," said Siddharth Singh, deputy programme manager at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Whether emissions from these plants are causing further pollution remains unclear with flawed and non-functional monitoring systems at most plants. "We never know the extent of pollution we are doing... we are converting our land based pollution to water or air pollution. That's what we end up doing," Singh told PTI. Moreover, while national incineration capacity seems sufficient, the waste generation to incineration capacity ratio might not be met for individual states, he said. For instance, Maharashtra reported a 45 per cent increase in the volume of its biomedical waste in May last year, with daily generation going from 62,000 kg per day before Covid to 90,000 kg per day, according to a report by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board. To address this problem, the CPCB in July last year in its revised guidelines for Covid waste management said states could approach the Environment Ministry's 'Hazardous Waste Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities' to deal with their Covid biomedical waste if it could not manage the load. Atin Biswas, programme director, Municipal Solid Waste at CSE, pointed out that while there were mechanisms in place, there was very little data on how many states had actually availed, or even knew of the facility. Notwithstanding the unprecedented health and environment crisis, the experts said there are ways to minimise the damage. To begin with, Singh said individuals needed to consciously reduce their plastic footprint. "We have always looked at the plastic problem in terms of recycling, but the focus should be on how to minimise it. Waste management is to reduce and manage," he said. For Agarwal, proper disposal is key to coming one step closer towards solving the problem. "At an individual level we have a big responsibility in how we dispose of things. It has to start at the individual level and the government also has to meet the requirement. It's cooperation between the two. It cannot be done by one or the other. "The role of municipalities becomes very critical here because waste collection from Covid homes is supposed to be done separately from general homes, but in many parts of the city (Delhi) that is not happening," he said. CSE's Biswas agreed. He said waste management is indeed a "shared responsibility", and a "comprehensive communication strategy" is important to achieve the goal of reducing plastic pollution. "Waste management is a behavioural challenge. Government has always perceived this to be an engineering problem and has been very poor at communication. Had the government invested in better communication, we would have less waste to deal with in the first place," he said. "We do need a very comprehensive strategy and a comprehensive roadmap if we have to achieve certain milestones," Biswas added. (June 5 is celebrated as World Environment Day)

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

विश्व पर्यावरण दिवस : पीपीई, मास्क और शील्ड..महामारी का अपशिष्ट कचरा संकट को और बढ़ाता है

नयी दिल्ली, चार जून प्लास्टिक और बायोमेडिकल कचरे का संकट कोविड के हर मामले के साथ गहराता जा रहा है जब लाखों लोग फेस शील्ड, सर्जिकल मास्क, दस्ताने और पीपीई सूट इस्तेमाल कर उन्हें फेंक रहे हैं जो कभी मुख्य रूप से अस्पतालों में इस्तेमाल होता है लेकिन अब हर किसी के जीवन का अभिन्न हिस्सा बन गए हैं। शनिवार को विश्व पर्यावरण दिवस से पहले चिंतित विशेषज्ञों ने कहा कि प्लास्टिक के खिलाफ चलाए जा रहे आंदोलन को इस वैश्विक महामारी में बड़ा झटका लगा है जहां एकल प्रयोग के प्लास्टिक पर निर्भरता बढ़ रही है और घरों से टन के टन बायोमेडिकल कचरे पैदा हो रहे हैं। वैश्विक महामारी का कूड़ा हर जगह दिख रहा है - पीपीई सूट अस्पतालों और श्मशान घाटों के पीछे फेंके पड़े हैं, सर्जिकल मास्क और शील्डों को घरों के कूड़े के तौर पर फेंका जा रहा है और निश्चित तौर पर सेनेटाइजर की बोतलें, दस्ताने और इस तरह की चीजें सड़कों के कोने में मौजूद कचरा फेंकने वाली जगहों पर देखने को मिलती हैं। भारत में कचरा निस्तारण प्रणालियों के बेहतर न होने और बड़े पैमाने पर प्लास्टिक का प्रयोग हर दिन बढ़ने के साथ प्लास्टिक कचरे के धरती पर हानिकारक प्रभाव और सुरक्षा को लेकर चिंता भी दिनों-दिन बढ़ रही है। पर्यावरण के लिए काम करने वाले एनजीओ ‘टॉक्सिक लिंक्स’ के संस्थापक निदेशक रवि अग्रवाल ने पीटीआई-भाषा को बताया, “इसमें सामान्य वृद्धि हुई है और चूंकि यह संकट की स्थिति है, हम प्लास्टिक के बारे में नहीं सामान्य बचाव के बारे में सोच रहे हैं। अब ध्यान प्लास्टिक पर नहीं दिया जा रहा है, इसलिए यह एक समस्या है।” उन्होंने कहा, “मास्क और पीपीई किट जैसा बहुत सारा बायोमेडिकल कचरा आम घरों में भी अब पैदा हो रहा है। इसलिए यह बड़ी समस्या है। ये चीजें पारिस्थितिकी तंत्र में प्रवेश कर रही हैं। मास्क जैसी कई चीजें समुद्र तटों, प्रवाल भित्तियों आदि में दिख रही हैं।” केंद्रीय प्रदूषण नियंत्रण बोर्ड (सीपीसीबी) के मुताबिक भारत ने जून 2020 से 10 मई 2021 के बीच 45,038 टन कोविड-19 बायोमेडिकल कूड़ा पैदा किया यानी हर दिन कोविड-19 संबंधी 132 टन कूड़ा पैदा हुआ। यह कोविड-19 से पहले हर दिन उत्पन्न होने वाले 615 टन बायोमेडिकल कूड़े के अलावा है। इसका मतलब है कि केवल वैश्विक महामारी के कारण बायोमेडिकल कूड़ा उत्पन्न होने में 17 प्रतिशत वृद्धि हुई। संक्रमित मरीजों वाले घरों और अस्पतालों से कोविड संबंधित कूड़े के अलावा, गैर कोविड घरों से ‘वैश्विक महामारी के बढ़ावे के कारण’ निकलने वाला कूड़ा भी है जिसमें न सिर्फ रक्षात्मक उपकरण शामिल हैं बल्कि प्लास्टिक के पैकेट भी शामिल हैं जहां ज्यादा से ज्यादा लोग जरूरी और गैर जरूरी खरीदारी के लिए होम डिलिवरी का इस्तेमाल कर रहे हैं। मौजूदा कूड़ा निस्तारण नियमों के तहत बायोमेडिकल कूड़े को चार श्रेणियों में विभाजित किया जाता है- पीला (बेहद संक्रामक कूड़ा जैसे इंसान, जानवर, शारीरिक, , लाल (ट्यूब, बोतल ट्यूब, सिरिंज जैसे निपटान-योग्य वस्तुओं से उत्पन्न दूषित पुनर्चक्रण योग्य कचरा), सफेद (सुइयां, सुई लगी सिरिंजों जैसे नुकीले कचरे) और नीला (दवाओं की टूटी हुई या फेंक दी गई तथा दूषित कांच के बोतल आदि)। संक्रामक समझी जाने वाले सभी कोविड अपशिष्ट को पीले कूड़े की श्रेणी में रखा जाता है और जला दिया जाता है। इसे दे्खते हुए, भारत इस बायोमेडिकल अपशिष्ट के अतिरिक्त बोझ से निपटने के लिए भारत अच्छी तरह से उपकरणों से लैस लगता है क्योंकि उसके पास एक दिन में 800 टन कचरा जलाने की राष्ट्रीय क्षमता है। लेकिन विशेषज्ञों का कहना है कि अन्य बातों को भी ध्यान में रखना होगा। सेंटर फॉर साइंस एंड इन्वायरन्मेंट (सीएसई) में कार्यक्रम उपप्रबंधक सिद्धार्थ सिंह ने कहा, “इस तथ्य की तरह कि स्वास्थ्य संकट के कारण, गैर कोविड बायोमेडिकल अपशिष्ट भी बढ़ा है। दूसरा, ये कूड़ा भस्म करने वाले संयंत्र अलग-अलग किए गए कचरे के लिए बने हैं। लेकिन चूंकि कोविड अपशिष्ट अलग-अलग नहीं किया जाता, यह प्रक्रिया इन संयंत्रों की कार्यक्षमता को प्रभावित करती है।” इन संयंत्रों से होने वाला उत्सर्जन और प्रदूषण कर रहा है या नहीं यह अभी स्पष्ट नहीं है क्योंकि अधिकतर संयंत्रों में निगरानी प्रणालियां या तो काम नहीं कर रही हैं या उनमें खामियां हैं।

• Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy

World Environment Day: PPE, masks and shields... pandemic detritus adds to waste crisis

The crisis of plastic and biomedical waste is deepening with each Covid case as millions of people use and throw face shields, surgical masks, gloves and PPE suits, once used primarily in hospitals and now an indispensable part of everyday life. The movement against plastic has taken a battering in the pandemic with dependency on single-use plastic surging and households contributing to the tonnes of biomedical waste being generated, worried experts said ahead of World Environment Day on Saturday. The detritus of the pandemic can be seen everywhere - PPE suits lying discarded behind hospitals and crematoriums, surgical masks and shields being thrown as part of household waste and, of course, sanitiser bottles, gloves and the like found in street corner garbage dumps. With waste disposal mechanisms less than perfect in India and the 'plastic footprint' becoming larger by the day, concerns on plastic waste choking the planet and worries about safety are mounting. "There has been a general increase and since it is a crisis situation, we are not thinking of plastic but general prevention. The focus is no longer plastic, so that is a problem," Ravi Agarwal, founder director of the environmental NGO Toxics Link, told . "A lot of biomedical waste like masks and PPE kits are also being generated in general homes now. So that is becoming a big problem. These things are finding their way across ecosystems. A lot of these things like masks can be seen on beaches, in coral reefs etc," he added. According to the <a href="/topic/Central-Pollution-Control-Board" target="_blank">Central Pollution Control Board</a> (<a href="/topic/CPCB" target="_blank">CPCB</a>), India produced 45,308 tonnes of COVID-19 biomedical waste between June 2020 and May 10, 2021, an average daily generation of 132 tonnes of COVID-19 related waste. This is in addition to the 615 tonnes of biomedical waste a day being produced before COVID-19, amounting to a 17 per cent increase in biomedical waste generation solely because of the pandemic. Besides Covid-related waste from hospitals and homes with positive patients, there is 'pandemic promoted' waste from non-Covid homes, including not just protective gear but also plastic packaging with more and more people using home deliveries for essential and non-essential shopping. Under the existing waste disposal rules, biomedical waste is segregated into four categories - Yellow (highly infectious waste such as human, animal, anatomical, soiled), Red (contaminated recyclable waste generated from disposable items like tubing, bottles tubes, syringes), White (waste sharps, including needles, syringes with fixed needles), and Blue (broken or discarded and contaminated glassware, including medicine vials). Considered potentially infectious, all Covid waste, irrespective of content, is tagged Yellow and incinerated. On the face of it, India seems well equipped to handle this extra load of biomedical waste with a national incineration capacity of 800 tonnes a day. But experts said there are other factors that needed to be taken into account. "Like the fact that due to the health crisis, non-Covid biomedical waste generation has also gone up. Secondly, these incinerators are meant for waste that has been segregated. But since Covid waste is not being segregated, the process compromises the efficiency of the incinerators," said Siddharth Singh, deputy programme manager at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Whether emissions from these plants are causing further pollution remains unclear with flawed and non-functional monitoring systems at most plants. "We never know the extent of pollution we are doing... we are converting our land based pollution to water or air pollution. That's what we end up doing," Singh told . Moreover, while national incineration capacity seems sufficient, the waste generation to incineration capacity ratio might not be met for individual states, he said. For instance, <a href="/topic/Maharashtra" target="_blank">Maharashtra</a> reported a 45 per cent increase in the volume of its biomedical waste in May last year, with daily generation going from 62,000 kg per day before Covid to 90,000 kg per day, according to a report by the <a href="/topic/Maharashtra-Pollution-Control-Board" target="_blank">Maharashtra Pollution Control Board</a>. To address this problem, the CPCB in July last year in its revised guidelines for Covid waste management said states could approach the Environment Ministry 's 'Hazardous Waste Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities' to deal with their Covid biomedical waste if it could not manage the load. Atin Biswas, programme director, Municipal Solid Waste at CSE, pointed out that while there were mechanisms in place, there was very little data on how many states had actually availed, or even knew of the facility. Notwithstanding the unprecedented health and environment crisis, the experts said there are ways to minimise the damage. To begin with, Singh said individuals needed to consciously reduce their plastic footprint. "We have always looked at the plastic problem in terms of recycling, but the focus should be on how to minimise it. Waste management is to reduce and manage," he said. For Agarwal, proper disposal is key to coming one step closer towards solving the problem. "At an individual level we have a big responsibility in how we dispose of things. It has to start at the individual level and the government also has to meet the requirement. It's cooperation between the two. It cannot be done by one or the other. "The role of municipalities becomes very critical here because waste collection from Covid homes is supposed to be done separately from general homes, but in many parts of the city (Delhi) that is not happening," he said. CSE's Biswas agreed. He said waste management is indeed a "shared responsibility", and a "comprehensive communication strategy" is important to achieve the goal of reducing plastic pollution. "Waste management is a behavioural challenge. Government has always perceived this to be an engineering problem and has been very poor at communication. Had the government invested in better communication, we would have less waste to deal with in the first place," he said. "We do need a very comprehensive strategy and a comprehensive roadmap if we have to achieve certain milestones," Biswas added.

• Down To Earth

2021 lockdowns not as effective as last year's in cleaning Delhi-NCR air: CSE

2021 lockdowns not as effective as last year's in cleaning Delhi-NCR air: CSE Meteorology would be partly responsible for this trend, but it could also be a reflection of weakening of pollution control-measures and efforts in the city and region, it said. Lockdowns have improved the air quality in Delhi-NCR this year as well but not as effectively as last year due to the 2021 curbs being shorter and lesser stringent, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has found in a study. Meteorology would be partly responsible for this trend, but it could also be a reflection of weakening of pollution control-measures and efforts in the city and region, it said. Traffic intensity was also comparatively higher in 2021, it added. This year, restrictions in Delhi started on April 6 in the form of night-curfews and weekend lockdowns with complete lockdowns being imposed on April 19. The imposition of partial-lockdown lowered PM2.5 pollutant levels by 20 per cent; while the complete lockdown brought the average down by further 12 per cent, according to the CSE analysis. "In 2020, partial lockdown started on March 12 with hard lockdown kicking in on March 25, which was lifted in phase-wise manner from May 18. Then the partial lockdown also brought PM2.5 levels down by 20 per cent, but the hard lockdown reduced it by another 35 per cent," the CSE said. Lifting of restrictions from May 18 had led to 28 per cent rise in PM2.5 levels, it said. The green think-tank also said the lockdown summers in 2020 and 2021 have been 25 to 40 per cent cleaner as compared to the summer of 2019. It also said that spring of 2021 (January-March) has recorded the highest pollution levels for the season since 2019. Normally, PM2.5 levels have a seasonal cycle with winter being the most polluted and monsoon season being the cleanest. Spring (January to March) acts as a transitional period between the two extremes- winter and summer A significant drop in PM2.5 levels happens as the weather warms up and wind picks up speed during spring. "There was a 26 per cent drop between winter of 2018 and spring of 2019. In 2020, this drop increased to 36 per cent due to pollution control measures in place and also imposition of partial lockdowns in March 2020. But this downward trend in spring pollution did not continue this year, with seasonal drop limited to 18 per cent," the report said. "In fact, spring this year has been 31 per cent dirtier than 2020 and 8 per cent dirtier than 2019," it said. The CSE analysis also showed that there were 27 "very poor" days in terms of air quality this February-March compared to 17 in 2020 and 12 in 2019. Days meeting the air quality standard also plummeted this spring to just two. The year 2020 had 16 and 2019 had six days when the standard was met, it said.