Waste from UK dumped in India

[Spring Onion]

Household waste from UK dumped in India


Press Trust Of India
London, September 08, 2008
First Published: 11:26 IST(8/9/2008)
Last Updated: 11:35 IST(8/9/2008)



Household waste collected weekly across Britain for recycling is being shipped and dumped in India, according to an investigation by ITVs 'Tonight programme'.

As part of country's efforts to go green and improve the environment, UK councils ask households to carefully separate waste into different categories: plastics, metal, paper and glass so that they all can be recycled.

But, according to the investigation, they were shipped to India on the waste black market, which is cheaper. It costs up to 148 pounds to recycle a tonne of rubbish once it is separated but only 40 pounds to ship it to India.

The investigation found that a receipt put into a paper recycling bin in Essex turned up at the top of a stinking rubbish mount in Tamil Nadu. It was traced to the Walton-on-the-Naze home of Geoff Moore.

His receipt for CDs was found by investigators from ITV's 'Tonight' programme at a sprawling rubbish tip in Tamil Nadu. They also found juice cartons, British newspapers, Walkers crisp packets, UK school reports and plastic bags.

All UK councils are required to recycle. But after householders separate their rubbish and bin workers collect it, councils pass it on to waste firms, who in turn use subcontractors. They are under no obligation to reveal what they actually do with it.

European Union law bans sending waste abroad for dumping but allows it to go overseas if it has already been separated and provided that it is actually recycled, according to the Sunday Mirror.

The Environment Agency promised to investigate the matter.

Paul Bettison of the Local Government Authority Environment Board called for a change in the law and said "if a contractor refuses to reveal where materials are being sold it can undermine the whole process."

Household waste from UK dumped in India- Hindustan Times

 

[Patriot]

LMAO ...

 

[princess.]

r u jokin..all our trash goes to india..lol.thts funny hehhee

 

[Last Hope]

...and do they get payment? It's just like export (for India).
Are the Brits this 'corrupt' who fake up things and actually dump their gross waste in another nation just to save a couple of pounds...and the other nation accept it warmly?

 

[Abhishek_]

holy thread excavator batman

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

i saw Jana's name and got excited, thinking she was back on PDF....then i saw "2008"


doh!!!


as for the subject itself -- well i dont know much about waste management but who knows maybe someone in india is profiting off this

 

[Pukhtoon]

^^^^ Same here i thought she came back.Hope she is in good health.

 

[Omar1984]

Is India a global trash can?

Radha Venkatesan, TOI Crest Apr 24, 2010, 11.57am IST

At the start of the millennium, the picturesque Spanish city of Barcelona decided to 'go green' and free its historic land of waste. And so, 103.7 metric tonnes of Barcelona's garbage — from shredded plastic carry bags to used diapers and napkins — arrived last August at the nondescript port of Tuticorin in southern India.

The three stinking containers were promptly sent back to Barcelona by alert Customs officials. However, for the last eight months, 72.59 metric tonnes of trash ranging from optical fibre waste to used oil cans and rubber hoses from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia have been lying at the Tuticorin dock, reeking.

Last year alone, nine containers of hazardous waste imported from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Barcelona by three different companies in Tamil Nadu were caught at the port in a clear pointer to rural India becoming a waste bin for the developed world.

This year, too, 20 containers of hazardous waste from Greece and Reunion, a French colony, imported by a paper factory in southern Tamil Nadu, were "resent" from the Tuticorin port. Used syringes, juice cartons and blood-stained napkins collected by the municipal councils in suburban London were found in a pile of rubbish dumped in a well in a farm at Kemmarampalayam in Coimbatore in August 2008.

But why are the developed nations dumping their garbage on Indian soil? Simply because shipping municipal waste to India is about four times cheaper than recycling it in their own land. While it costs Rs 12,000 to recycle a tonne of rubbish after segregation in Britain, shipping the rubbish to India costs just about Rs 2,800.

Cement factories in Tamil Nadu also import toxic garbage on the pretext of using it as fuel. These consignments are booked innocuously as 'mixed waste paper, plastic scrap or latex' to hoodwink customs.

"As most of these consignments smell foul, we check it. And we send the samples to the Pollution Control Board to ascertain if it is hazardous or not. And then we take the necessary steps, sometimes sending them back to the countries they came from," says Tuticorin port's additional customs commissioner S Chandra Mohan. Importers of municipal waste, especially paper and cement factories, prefer the Tuticorin route as it is a minor port and offers better chances of easy passage.

None of the Indian ports have scanners to detect the actual contents of the consignments. Environment protection laws in India are not stringent enough to curb imports of hazardous waste, say environmental activists. "When toxic consignments are caught, the importing companies manage to get relief from the court," says a customs official.

Four containers of smelly waste are still docked at the port. More importantly, the State Pollution Control Board's environmental engineers, who are responsible for monitoring the dumping of hazardous waste, fail to act swiftly in several cases. "They take a long time even to give the laboratory test reports and it leads to unnecessary delays in resending the waste,'' a customs official says.

After a British TV channel exposed how toxic waste from municipal councils in the UK were being dumped in farms in western Tamil Nadu, environmental engineers were asked to keep a close watch on the industrial units that imported the trash. Vigilance and anticorruption officials raided the offices of the Pollution Control Board's environment engineers. While one of the engineers was caught with Rs 7 lakh in unaccounted cash, in another district pollution control office, wads of notes were, ironically, found dumped in the dustbin.




Is India a global trash can? - Times Of India

 

[Omar1984]

India could drown in its own waste, with or without the British 'Garbage Girl' – Telegraph Blogs

 

[tombrady]

Where else would it dumped? It's not like it will affect India in anyway. Hell, they even dump dead bodies in their holy rivers and defecate all over the streets. India is not exactly a clean place anyway, a little waste won't hurt them.

 

[Icewolf]

Where else would it dumped? It's not like it will affect India in anyway. Hell, they even dump dead bodies in their holy rivers and defecate all over the streets. India is not exactly a clean place anyway, a little waste won't hurt them.

troll alert

---------- Post added at 12:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:58 AM ----------

^^^What about our mother land?

another troll