Delhi an e-waste dumping yard?

Delhi, which is already reeling under high pollution, has now to deal with another environmental challenge - e-wastes. According to an industry lobby's estimate, over 2,000 trucks dump around 12,000 tonnes of e-waste in the city per day.

"Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka generate over 25,000 tonnes of e-waste per day through various industrial activities and dump around 50 percent of it at different places in Delhi, particularly at Turkeman Gate, Shastri Park, Loni, Seelampur and Mandavali," Sajjan Jindal, president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), said here Monday.

"The e-waste sent to Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore mostly makes its way to Delhi as there is a ready market for glass and plastic in the NCR (National Capital Region). In fact, wastes from Mumbai constitute a bulk of the 60-70 tonnes of discarded electronics that land in Delhi's scrap yards everyday," he said in a statement.

Estimates also reveal that Delhi alone gets 25 percent of the total e-waste generated in the developed world, which comes through cheaper imports. Nearly 30,000 people are working in the city's various scrap yards and unauthorised recycling units.

As a result of continuous inflow of e-waste, the Delhi government has found it difficult to plant and grow saplings in the waste land, the industry forum said.

According to the Assocham, each state should develop its own scrap yards in the respective cities so that the environmental hazards would be minimised in Delhi.

It added that Delhi and the NCR have over 40,000 industrial and medical units, which are responsible for generating electronics and bio-medical waste.

The chamber has sent a proposal to the Delhi government, urging it to impose a ban on e-waste dumping in and around the NCR.

The Assocham has also suggested that the Delhi government plant more than 2 million saplings annually near the industrial centres to minimise the environmental hazards arising out of e-wastes.

The chamber has urged the government to bring out effective legislation to prevent child labour in the recycling sector.

Over 6,000 children, of the 10-15 age group, are engaged in various e-waste activities, without adequate protection and safeguards in Delhi's various yards and recycling workshops, it said.

Besides global warming, e-waste is the most threatening environmental problem in the world today. In India, the total e-waste generation is approximately 380,000 tonnes annually. And in the world, it is more than 20 million tonnes per year.

Sixty-five cities in India generate more than 60 percent of the total e-waste generated in the country while 10 states generate 70 percent of the total e-waste.
for more information follow the link: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com

Alarming Facts

There are more than 3 million poisonings every year. Household cleaners are the number one cause of poisoning of children. The EPA
has reported that nearly 30 cancer-causing chemicals were detectable in the fat tissues of literally every American today.

1. Just reducing (not eliminating) environmental carcinogens alone would save at least 50,000 lives from cancer annually. (Dr. Lee Davis, former advisor to the Secretary of Health)
2. Over 150 chemicals commonly found in homes have been linked to allergies, birth defects, cancer, and psychological abnormalities. (Consumer Product Safety Commission) The average American home contains more than 1,000 different chemicals. (EPA)
3. Toxic chemicals in household cleaners are three times more likely to cause cancer than air pollution. (EPA)
4. Most homes have airborne concentrations of hazardous chemicals that are three to 70 times higher indoors than outdoors. (EPA)
5. Women who work at home have a 54% higher death rate from cancer than women who work outside of the home. The higher death rate is believed to be due to daily exposure to chemicals found in ordinary household products. (Toronto Indoor Air Commission)
6. In the past 14 years, there has been a 75% increase in asthma; 29% for men; 71% for women. The higher rate for women is believed to be due to women’s longer exposure times to household chemicals. (Center for Disease Control) Of the approximately 87,000 chemicals now in common use, only 1,350 have been tested for carcinogenicity or other health effects. That’s less than 2% of the total. (Household Toxins Institute) Researchers are finding that some chemicals can cause damage to a child’s developing brain, while others may cause cancer or mimic or block hormones. Children are more vulnerable to chemicals that adults can tolerate. Their bodies are simply not ready to process and remove toxins. Kids receive proportionately larger doses of environmental toxins than adults. (Children’s Health Environmental Coalition)
   
7. There are basically three ways toxic chemicals can enter your body: by swallowing (ingestion), by breathing (inhalation), or by contact with your skin or eyes (absorption).
8. The personal care products we put on our skin and hair create possible toxic exposures through skin absorption. These include soaps, lotions, cosmetics, shampoos, deodorants and other common products. Of 2,983 chemicals used in personal care products 884 were found to be toxic, 778 can cause acute toxicity, 146 can cause tumors, 218 can cause reproductive complications and 376 can cause skin and eye irritations. (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health) 90% of health problems caused by chemicals are through the inhalation of chemical vapors and absorption of chemical particles. However, many warning labels refer only to toxic hazards caused by ingestion of a chemical.
9. Asthma, allergies, cancer and a range of maladies from skin irritations to fatigue and behavior problems can be directly linked to chemicals in households. (Dr. Phillip Landrigan, Director of Mt. Sinai’s Center for Children’s Health and the Environment)(www.childenvironment.org) Toxic chemicals in homes are three times more likely to cause cancer than any outdoor airborne pollutants. (EPA)
10. There has been a 26% increase in breast cancer since 1982. Breast cancer is the leading cause of death in women aged 34 to 55, killing more than 40,000 women across the country every year. “I believe it is high time to seriously consider environmental chemicals as the most likely cause of this sudden increase in risk.” says Dr. Ana Soto, breast cancer specialist at Tufts Medical School.
11. More than 2,600 Americans die of cardiovascular disease each day – that is an average of one death every 33 seconds. (American Heart Association, 2003)
12. By 2020, nearly half of all people over age 50 will be affected by arthritis. More than 60 million will suffer from osteoporosis. (Center for Disease Control)
13. The average obese person will die 13 years earlier than a person of normal weight. Sixty-two percent of Americans are overweight – 34% of them are clinically obese. (New England Medical Journal of Medicine, 2003)
14. Ninety percent of all men will have some form of prostate cancer by age 85. (Journal of Urology)
15. Household toxins don’t just affect us, they create toxic waste in their manufacture and use which gets disposed of in the environment in the form of air and water pollution and solid toxic waste. Not only does this pollution come back to haunt our own health, but it also harms wildlife.
16. The California Department of Fish and Game tested the toxicity of common chemicals they found in their waterways. The most toxic substances to aquatic organisms were household bleach, all-purpose cleaner, laundry detergent and dish detergent. These were more harmful to aquatic life than other products we think of as being more toxic, such as paint or car wax.
17. The leading dishwasher detergent contains 3.39 grams of phosphates per tablespoon. If every North American household washed just one load of dishes each day, more than 4,800 tons of phosphates would be needlessly dumped into our waterways, threatening the natural balance of fish and algae life. Just one ingredient – chlorine – is basic to more than 10,000 of all new synthetic chemicals, and it also figures in some of the world’s most difficult environmental problems: ozone layer depletion, losses of wildlife, reduction in human intelligence and fertility, contamination of ground water, and so on. (www.stopcancer.org) The disposal of toxic synthetic chemical products down household drains and into public sewer systems is posing an extreme challenge to the wastewater treatment industry. (Household Toxins Institute)
    

For more information visit link:www.chooseagreatlife.net

Dogs in China

South Korea is not the only place in Asia where dogs are routinely slaughtered. These photos were taken in Xichang Province in China where dogs are daily taken from breeding farms and have their throats cut and are bled to death in the manner seen below whilst other dogs look on.


A young dog looks on awaiting his turn

The dog's blood is drained from the throat whilst it is still conscious



Dogs and cats and the Global Fur Trade
A recent investigation has uncovered the trail used by people involved in the use of dogs and cats for the global fur market. Hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats in the Phillipines and Thailand are captured daily by roving trucks and then taken away to be hung while their fellow animals look on. They are hung through the top of the cage so as to not leave any marks on the fur or skin which are then shipped to places such as Japan for manufacture of drums and these are forwarded to the rest of Asia, Europe and the US.

If we do not address this issue one day will come when our children will watch dogs in the animation movies and pictures only. Each species is equally important to maintain ecological balance.
http://www.angelfire.com/ky/holywood/