Environmental News and Media Roundup for Week 18, 2013
Weekly environmental news roundup from across different media networks for Week 18 (starting April 29, 2013) 2013.
1. Waste to energy plant in Delhi creating ‘hazardous air quality conditions’
A resident’s collective opposing the Timarpur-Okhla waste to energy plant has had air quality samples taken from around the plant analysed by ChesterLabNet and Chennai based Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives which took two 24-hours ambient air samples.
2. (Land) filled to the brim in East Delhi
Garbage-laden municipal trucks climb the Ghazipur landfill, a 30-metre-high and multi-layer hill containing 46 lakh metric tonnes of trash. Up there, a large number of rag-pickers are busy snapping up saleable recyclables missed by their street counterparts amid innumerable kites encircling overhead and dogs, captured from streets, hanging around.
3. Submit report on biomedical waste management, NGT to hospitals
The National Green Tribunal has issued instructions to Haryana government to submit the details of hospitals adhering to the prescribed standards for the management of biomedical waste.
4. Delhi may drown in its own waste
Growing by heaps and mounds, Delhi’s garbage crisis may soon reach its breaking point.
5. Take steps on waterlogging: HC
The Delhi high court on Tuesday asked the civic agencies and other authorities to take steps, including de-silting of drains, before monsoon to prevent waterlogging.
6. Sewage kills half of city’s water bodies
More than 50% of water bodies across Delhi are dry, a study has revealed.
7. Green tribunal extends stay on widening of road in Vasant Kunj
The interim stay on the road-widening project in Vasant Kunj, which was mired in controversy because of illegal felling of trees, has been extended till May 8.
8. No action to de-choke trees
More than 10 days after the National Green Tribunal ordered that trees be released from concrete, no government or civic agency seems keen on the execution.
9. Green Oscar for Indian conservator
India’s hornbill conservator Aparajita Datta has won a ‘Green Oscar’: the Whitley award. Princess Royal Anne, daughter of the UK’s Queen Elizabeth, presented the Whitley award, an international nature conservation prize, to Datta at a ceremony at the Royal Geographical Society in London in honour of the latter’s work to protect threatened hornbills in the forests of Arunachal Pradesh.
10. Japanese loans for infrastructure projects only after green nod
Japan which funds infrastructure projects in India through its development assistance arm, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, says it will now sign loan agreements only when most of the land acquisition and environment clearance is done. It will also increase funding if projects are implemented on time or in a smooth way.
