IN what threatens to be a major environmental scandal, large quantities of forbidden hazardous wastes are being smuggled into the country by recycling firms. Appallingly, most of these firms operate sans licence with scant regard for environmental safety proprieties.
This rampant crime was highlighted recently when a Dehra Dun-based NGO moved the Supreme Court against the Union of India, citing the Bhopal-based Bharat Zinc Ltd and the Bombay-based Indian Lead Ltd for violating environmental norms viz. import, handling and processing of hazardous wastes.
The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resources Policy filed the petition following disclosures by Greenpeace that levels of lead, cadmium and chromium—three confirmed toxins present as contaminants in zinc waste—in the factories were higher than permissible. Nor were the workers provided with safety devices such as gloves against exposure. Greenpeace also found workers suffering from brain and psychological disorders due to chronic and acute exposure. In fact, as the Central Pollution Control Board said in its affidavit, "India doesn't have environmentally sound facilities to recycle zinc."
Says Sanjay Parekh, the Research Foundation's advocate: "The company was granted licence in January last year, though it didn't even have a disposal sittill six months later. This goes to show how lax the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MEF) can be. In fact, Bharat Zinc has been illegally recycling imported hazardous wastes from much earlier."
The MEF has no idea of what's going on. "For instance," explains Parekh, "it claimed that Indian Lead has not been granted licence for any consignment so far, whereas the company claims in its affidavit that it has been recycling lead in environmentally sound ways. Which means the company has been illegally importing lead wastes."
Early this year, authorities had confiscated an unauthorised consignment of lead waste and filed a case in the high court against the trader. Last month, the high court issued an order to the Government that no toxic waste be allowed to enter the country. Licences for importing toxic wastes were given only from 1994, which means prior to that toxic wastes were being imported illegally.
This may be just the tip of the iceberg. Says Parekh: "There must hundreds of other firms recycling all manner of hazardous wastes. The MEF claims only seven firms have been granted licence for recycling hazardous wastes. But Bharat Zinc gave us a list of 91 firms dealing with zinc alone." In Andhra Pradesh, for example, there are 139 units without a licence. Likewise, there are about such 234 units in Uttar Pradesh.
The petition raises the larger issue of dumping of toxic wastes by industrialised countries on developing countries. Says Vandana Shiva, director of the Research Foundation: "Developed countries are unwilling or unable to dispose of their own toxic waste as they don't wish to pollute their own environment or find the cost of disposal under their stringent laws prohibitive."
This has been dubbed as Garbage Imperialism. The 1989 Basel Convention, which India signed in 1992, seeks to abolish this trend by envisaging a ban on export of toxic wastes between countries by December 31, 1997. And since India has decided to tarry till 1997, toxic substances are finding their way to Indian shores in the guise of scrap metal. " Not surprising, since officials in the developing countries are often willing to import toxic wastes or licence private firms because it is a lucrative way of easing their debt burden. This, says Shiva, has led to the formation of a powerful lobby of waste syndicates and controllers in both the importing and exporting countries.
However lucrative recycling toxic wastes might be, it is quite plausible that the West has used the myth of recycling to disguise and support hazardous waste import. And with countries in Africa and other regions imposing a total ban on import of hazardous waste, Asia has become the last available garbage dump. It's time India stopped it from piling up in its own backyard.
