Fine on using plastic bags

Mumbai: Carrying a thin plastic bag could soon cost you Rs 5,000. Realising that the ban on thin plastic bags has not worked, the state government is making another attempt to ensure that plastic below 50 microns does not make its entry into everyday lives. The ban was implemented in 2005 after the July 26 floods wreaked havoc in the city. But the plastic menace continues, prompting the new proposal.
The target this time around are citizens who refuse to carry cloth bags while going shopping or prefer not to purchase thicker plastic as they are more expensive. The fine of Rs 5,000—which is now collected from a first-time defaulter such as a manufacturer, stockist, retailer, hawker or a restaurant owner—will apply to the ordinary citizen as well.

WHAT THE LAW SAYS

The Maharashtra Plastic Carry Bags (Manufacture and Usage) Rules 2006 specify that the minimum thickness of carry bags made of virgin or recycled plastic be 50 microns and that the size should not be less than 8x12 inches

A plastic bag less than 50 microns in size is lighter, flies easily and creates problems

It was the chief reason for the choking of drains in Mumbai on July 26, 2005

Being lighter, the littered bags do not motivate ragpickers to collect them since they have no value

Drilling into Antarctic ice for 'lost world'

It’s a quest for the “lost world”. In one of the boldest-ever missions, British scientists will drill through Antarctic ice in search of life forms hidden beneath the frozen layer for more than 400,000 years.

A team of Antarctic scientists has been given the go-ahead to drill through a two-mile-thick sheet of ice that has sealed a sub-glacial lake from the rest of the biosphere for at least as long as humans have walked the Earth, reports the Sunday Independent.

They hope to find species that have survived below the ice sheet since it formed between 400,000 and two million years ago. Finding life in such an extreme environment would be one of the most important discoveries of the century, raising the prospect of searching for extra-terrestrial life on Europa, a moon of Jupiter where life is thought to exist beneath a frozen ocean.

The scientists plan to use sophisticated ice-drilling technology developed in the UK to penetrate the ice cap and enter the liquid-water world of Lake Ellsworth in west Antarctica.

Lake Ellsworth is thought to be more than 300ft deep with a floor covered in thick sediment. The scientists who surveyed it believe it is a prime candidate for sub-glacial life.
“It is a dark, cold place that has been sealed from the outside world and it’s likely to contain unique forms of life,” Martin Siegert of Edinburgh University, the principal investigator on the Ellsworth project, was quoted by the British daily as saying.

The British team intends to break into Lake Ellsworth in the Antarctic summer of 2012-13 with a pair of scientific probes designed to capture living organisms, or the chemical signs of life. It will be the first time any nation has explored these mysterious sub-glacial lakes.

Technical problems have dogged a similar Russian project to penetrate a much bigger lake called Vostok in East Antarctica. A healthy competition between Russia and Britain has spurred each side in the race to be first to enter a sub-glacial lake.

If these microbes do exist, they would almost certainly have evolved in near-total isolation from the rest of life on Earth, and for such a length of time that they might now be markedly different from similar life forms found at the surface.

Thin plastic is killing ecology

Delhi is making an effort to ban plastic bags. Closer home, Karnataka made the same effort way back in 2002. Then the government had announced a ban on plastic bags thinner than 20 microns. A micron is one millionth of a metre.

The ban, however, has not achieved its objective. In any garbage bin, storm water drain or your neighbourhood store, thin, low-quality plastic bags are found in abundance, flouting the Environment Protection Act. One has the option of not using plastic bags, but many are fine with having a free bag while shopping.

Plastic waste management firms get bags that are thinner than 20 microns and in some case, 10 microns for recycling. Few people are aware that plastic bags and containers are banned from use in wedding halls and choultries in Bangalore. Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) had issued the order in 2002, but the rules have remained on paper. Such bags are also banned in Cubbon Park, Lalbagh and Bannerghatta. As per the order, thin plastic bags can't be used to print election material such as posters and flyers.

"The regulation is not being followed. I doubt people are aware of the regulation at all. There is no monitoring, and most of the plastic items we get for recycling are thin and of low quality, less than 10 microns," says Ahmed Khan, managing director of KK Waste Management.

Thick plastic covers are better because it's easier to collect them. "Plastic takes decades to degrade and releases carcinogens like furons and dioxins," he explained.

The KSPCB controls plastic production in Karnataka. As per the Environment Protection Act, manufacturers must be registered with KSPCB.

The Board has passed orders to close five manufacturing units in the last two years. The offenders are liable to be imprisoned up to five years and fined. All aspects of dealing with plastic bags in the city are under the jurisdiction of the district commissioner of Bangalore Urban and Rural.

KSPCB chairman H C Sharatchandra is optimistic about an umbrella ban on plastic bags in Karnataka: "It's possible. Himachal Pradesh has done it and now Delhi has imposed it. We must take the step."

IN CIRCULATION

* According to KK Waste Management, Bangalore generates 35 tonnes of plastic waste every day

* KSPCB reports show plastic products, mostly bags, constitute 6.2% of Bangalore's composite waste

* There are 290 registered manufacturing units from the state with KSPCB

* There are 16 plastic bag recyclers and 55 plastic product recyclers in the state

* There is no regular monitoring of rules on plastic usage

What happens when plastic is recycled

Plastic is recycled to make the original product -- plastic bags. The bag can be recycled seven to eight times, after which it can be used for road projects like the one KK Waste Management and BBMP are working on currently. Around 1,000 km have been completed with waste plastic in Bangalore.

The BBMP purchases plastic waste from K K Waste Management at Rs 27 per kg. The company pays rag-pickers Rs 6-12 per kg. This waste is mixed with other substances for roads; 30% of Bangalore's roads are laid with this mixture.

Suren, a young designer, uses plastic and tetrapacks to design accessories like bags, bottle-holders, pouches, wallets, jackets, etc. He recently bagged the PAN IIT award for his `Tetrapack waste' project.

LOS ANGELES: Google Inc said it would use its software skills to help consumers track their home energy usage and thereby lower demand and the global warming

emissions that come from producing electricity. The move is part of Google's effort to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into renewable energy, electricity-grid upgrades and other measures that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The company has already invested in several fledgling solar, wind and geothermal companies, as well as two "smart grid" companies. Smart grid describes a more efficient, less costly method of moving electricity along long-distance transmission lines to local power lines and end-users in homes and businesses. On its official company blog, Google said it is developing a smart grid tool called Google PowerMeter that will show home energy consumption almost in real time on a user's computer. The company cited studies showing that access to home energy information typically saves between 5 percent and 15 percent on monthly electricity bills. "It may not sound like much, but if half of America's households cut their energy demand by 10 percent, it would be the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road," Google said. Google PowerMeter is currently being tested by employees and is not yet available to the public. The company hopes to develop partnerships with utilities so it can roll PowerMeter out to consumers in the next few months, spokeswoman Niki Fenwick said. Google's investments in smart grid companies include Germantown, Maryland-based Current Group and Redwood City, California-based Silver Spring Networks.

A river Waste

Each year, power companies generate approximately 130 million tons of coal ash — enough to fill a million railroad cars. Industry representatives estimate 43 percent of coal ash now gets recycled in such items as concrete or wallboard — two “beneficial uses” that use one type of coal ash. But that still leaves more than 70 million tons of ash annually for companies to dump in lagoons, landfills, and, more recently, mine pits. Today, there are 194 landfills and 161 ponds containing coal ash in 47 states, according to 2005 data from the Department of Energy, the latest available. Estimates from the EPA in 2000 were higher: 600 total landfills and ponds containing coal ash. And an unknown number of active and abandoned coal mines also are filled with the stuff. These sites are ground zero for the ongoing controversy over coal ash.

Although the industry professes that these sites are safe, the problem is that every year, some of them leak. And what oozes into the soil and water are dangerous substances: antimony, boron, cadmium, selenium, mercury. In July 2006, the National Academy of Sciences identified 24 potentially hazardous metals in coal ash. And the list is likely to grow. As the EPA tightens controls on emissions through the air, power companies are capturing more particulates and metals in the solid wastes, like coal ash. The Academy’s 2006 report documents that result. Commissioned by the EPA, the study examined risks associated with the burgeoning practice of “minefilling,” or dumping coal ash in mines, and catalogued the way the ash can pollute ground and surface water. “The presence of high contaminant levels in many [coal ash] leachates,” says the report, “may create human health and ecological concerns at or near some mine sites over the long term.”

The EPA’s own research mirrors this conclusion. A report prepared for the agency analyzed hazards associated with ponds and landfills, and found that coal ash doesn’t pose a problem for nearby residents when power companies employ such protections as liners. But the threats arise when utilities dump the waste in unlined or partially lined ponds and pits, and there have been more than 180 such sites identified nationwide. Indeed, the analysis determined such sites pose a cancer risk from arsenic at 900 times the level of what was deemed safe. And concentrations of boron soared beyond safety levels for birds, frogs, and fish. Some EPA scientists believe that recent toxicity data would double the assessment of the hazards.