Essays

Much of the development being made is based on the use of increasing amount of raw materials, energy, chemicals and synthetics. The scale and complexity of our requirements for these resources have increased greatly with the rising levels of population and production. Indiscriminate industrial expansion to cater to the growing needs, without much attention being paid to its back-lash created in its wake, pollution, and subsequently environmental degradation. Notwithstanding the role of chemicals in improved health and life expectancy, increased agricultural production, enhanced economic opportunities and the quality of life in general, the products and residues of the chemical industry pose unprecedented risks to human health and environmental quality. The Indian scenario ol chemical industries sector looks grim with the industrialists often going in for outdated low efficiency processes and technologies associated with higher levels of pollution.

Pesticides like DDT, BHC, etc, which were banned or obsolete in industrialized countries are still being produced in the country. There are cases like the H-acid plants, which find themselves under considerable economic and environmental pressure in developed nations that have been installed in India. Increased use of chemicals in industry and agriculture and toxic and hazardous substances into the human food chain and into soils, water regimes, forests and ultimately in the environment.

While talking of the environment, we must realize that global environment is an interconnected web. The links among the natural systems of air, water, land and the living biota are often global. Disturbing any one of them can have unexpected results that are remote in both space and time. The human race relies on the environment and therefore must manage it wisely. The prosperity of nation's and individuals depends upon the quality of the environment and the availability of natural resources. Yet it is principally human activities that degrade the global environment and deplete the world's natural resource base.

Every environmental problem has got short-term as well as long-term impact. During the course of rapid Industrialization, we often neglect the long term impact mainly due to inadequate knowledge. The use of chemicals, such as CFCs and DDT are few examples in this regard. Another example of over-looking the long-term effects of pollution is being manifested in the form of acid rain, mainly in the industrialized countries of Europe. It is a well-known fact that most of the European coal is rich in sulphur content. As a result, high sulphur dioxide emission takes place during coal burning. To avoid its build-up in the proximity of human environment, tall stacks were designed. No doubt, these stacks were able to avoid the emission of this gas on the surface level, but the gas that went up high in the atmosphere formed acid droplets after reacting with the moisture there. Now, its impact is pathetic, as more than two-third of the European forests is being categorized as degraded and most of the lakes are slightly acidic.

A major achievement of the Rio Summit was the realization that environment and development are inseparable, and that industry is an important contributor to development. The need for preventive approaches to industrial pollution has now been recognized, and cleaner production is now seen as one of the control tools for industry to achieve environmental improvements while remaining competitive and profitable. The need for this approach is particularly greater in small and medium-sized enterprises whose cumulative impact on the environment is often greater than that of large scale industries. Environmental protection today is evolving and incorporating a whole new strategy to try to avoid the waste and pollution that has all too often characterized rapid Industrialization. If you go deep into the theme of cleaner production, it is basically efficiency that counts. Applying cleaner production means systematically addressing all phases of the production process and product life-cycle. Cleaner production encompasses 'energy and raw material conservation, reduction in the use of toxic substances and product and process changes that reduce the wastes and pollutants previously produced. All these options have the same aim, to reduce the risks to humans and the environment from industrial activities and consumption, and to do so in the most cost-effective way possible.

Unfortunately, cleaner production cannot always eliminate the generation of all wastes and emissions. Thus to protect the environment, a new complementary prevention and control approach is required, with the constant aim of reducing risk. In this new hierarchy, the first option is cleaner production. The second option is to find ways to recycle the wastes and pollutants that still exist back into the production system. The third option is to select an appropriate and environmentally sound treatment system that destroys the hazardous characteristics of the material. The fourth and last option is to restore what still remains in safest possible way.

Unfortunately, the preventive part, which is gaining momentum these days, was overlooked when thought of protecting the environment first emerged a few decades ago. Only the control methods, end-of-pipe (EOF) devices, were devised to solve the problems of polluted surface waters, intoxicated air and other results of industrial developments. EOP wastes, although less hazardous than the raw wastes, were in turn emitted to air/ waterways and soil without any due consideration. Little thought was given to correcting the root cause, processes and products themselves. As a result, even after treatment systems were adopted by most of the industries, the environment continued to get more and more polluted.

Nowadays, there is a great hunt for clean technologies in every sector of industry, and whenever an economically viable and suitable technology is evolved, most of the industries take keen interest in that technology. Recycling of condensate water in sugar industries, bio-methanation in distillery industry, caustic recovery in large pulp and paper mills and fibre recovery in small pulp and paper industry are the few technologies, which gained popularity in the recent past and ultimately reduced the burden on environment.

Some other sectors of industries are being persuaded to adopt relatively clean technologies. The use of beneficiated by thermal power plants may reduce a great amount of air pollutants and fly ash. At present, even if proper air-polluted control measures are adopted, there would still be a chance for air, water and soil pollution through fly ash. To produce 54,000 MW of electricity, the thermal power plants in the country consumes as much as 66 per cent of total coal utilized in the country.

It is true that industrialization has caused severe environmental degradation, but the link between number of industries and pollution load, which was almost linear in the past decade, is now parabolic. Previously, pollution control was not considered by industrialists at the designing and financing phase. On the contrary, these days pollution control and environmental protection have become an integral part of the design of the industries, at least in the case of medium and large scale industries. The strict enforcement of Water (Cess) Act, has taught the industrialists to conserve water. The era of economic liberalization has increased the pace of industrialization but impact on the environment and natural resources is now being monitored continuously. To protect the environment, our legal provisions are adequate and more strict than most of the developed countries. Many recent judgments delivered by the Supreme Court of India and some of the High Courts are ample proof of this.

To cope up with the environmental hazards of rapid industrialization, participation by the public and the NGOs is an essential factor. Due to restricted funds and manpower, it is difficult for government agencies to keep a constant watch on each and every industry. The NGOs should educate the people regarding environment and only then would the common man be able to participate in environmental protection and conservation plans.

The past few years have witnessed a steep rise in aluminium consumption. Aluminium is probably the second metal after steel in terms of importance and production. In today's industrial civilization, aluminium is important because it serves as a basic input for a number of industries. However, it is also widely used in household appliances. Consumption has increased its production in recent years. The annual production in 1995 was 635,000 tons as against 362,000 tons in 1989 and 481,500 tons in 1992.

At present, there are seven major aluminium producing industries. Out of these MAI.CO situated in Tamilnadu has been closed since 1991. The oldest such industry is INDALCO, Kerala, while the most recent NALCO is in Orissa. As far as production capacity is concerned, NALCO, Orissa, followed by HINDALCO, UP. With the modernization of smelters, HINDALCO has increased its capacity from 150,000 TPA to -175,000 TPA.

Aluminium is extracted from an ore, bauxite. It has been estimated that there are about 6,000 million tons of bauxite reserves in the world — mostly confined to the equator and tropical region. In our country, the States of Orissa, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamilnadu house several large and medium bauxite mines and the whole reserve is estimated as 2,650 million tons. This quantity of bauxite is enough to produce 500 million tons of aluminium.

There are three major steps in aluminium production- mining of bauxite, extraction of alumina and purification of alumina to aluminium. About 40-50 per cent of bauxite is alumina. The alumina is reduced to aluminium with the help of cryolite. About 50 per cent of cryolite is fluoride.

During the production of aluminium, all sorts’ of-pollutants are generated. During mining, unloading of railway wagons, crushing and mixing of additives, lots of dust and particulate matters are emitted. These can lead to respiratory disorders in the workers. The process of mining itself is a great hazard to the environment. The Amarkantak hills, once famous for dense forests, have been bared because of the bauxite mining. The Narmada, one of the major rivers, originates from the hills and due to mining activities gets polluted at the origin point itself.

The precipitation area in the industry has caustic vapours and this affects the skin. Toxic and hazardous gases, like carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide and oxides of nitrogen are present in calcination area. The most dangerous areas are green anode shop, anode bake oven and pot room. The people working here always remain in the fluoride, environment. It is well-known that continuous exposure to fluoride leads to a disease, fluorosis in which bones and teeth are affected. The emission of fluoride in pot room depends   upon the design of the pots. In our country, mostly three pot designs are used—PB, HSS and VSS. The PB pot emits 16 kg    fluoride per ton of aluminium while the rest emit 20 kg per ton.

It is not that pollution control methods are not available at every stage. At each stage, pollution may be controlled by simple precautions. But since the one and only aim of industries is to produce more and more aluminium at any Cost they pay scarce attention to this aspect. NALCO, Orissa, is the only industry which has adopted significant pollution control measures. The provision of cell hoodings over the pots can reduce the fluoride emission by 95 per cent, but when all the seven industries are taken into account, only one-third of the total pots have proper hoodings. The pollution control measures taken by H1NDALCO are inadequate and improper.

The used and discarded pot lining is known as spent pot lining (SPL) The SPL waste contains two distinct portions— upper portion is mainly carbon while lower portion is of alumina or silica bricks. During the operation of the cell, fluorides are absorbed into the cell lining and cyanides are produced due to chemical reaction between hydrogen, car- bon and nitrogen. SPL contains a heterogeneous mixture of carbon aluminium, sodium, fluoride, silicon, calcium and iron.     

The actual percentage of these constituents vary among plants and within each pot line. The typical cyanide concentration in the SPL waste is IOO to 250 ppm, equivalent to 0.1 to it 0.25 kg/T of waste generated. As per the waste category No. 1 of "Hazardous Waste (handling and management) Rules, 1989", any waste containing the cyanide concentration of more than 1 kg/year has been designated as hazardous waste.

However, the cyanide is present only in the carbon portion of SPL waste and from hazardous point of view only carbon portion is a hazardous waste. It is therefore a usual practice to dump the SPL into industrial campus without any special precaution. The cyanide and fluoride present in these then contaminate the groundwater and surface waters.

During the process of aluminium production, another solid' waste is generated and known fits 'Red Mud'. It is highly alkaline in nature and after drying becomes as hard as rock. It may be used in producing building materials, but in our country it is collected in the ponds. To avoid contamination of groundwater, the pond must be lined properly by thick polythene sheets. This method of disposal makes a large tract of land useless and in case of rupture in polythene sheet, there is possibility of water pollution.

In our country, there is a great scope of increased aluminium production as we have plenty of bauxite ore and are self-dependent in the process of production. But each and every industry has employed foreign consultants for the purpose. The consultants for BALCO, H1NDALCO, INDALCO, MALCO and NALCO are from Russia, America, Canada, Italy and France respectively.

A few years ago, a health study conducted by the specialists of All India Institute of Medical Sciences revealed that most of the workers are affected by fluorosis. The workers engaged in smelter area are vulnerable to muscle, neurological, allergy and urinary tract disorders. The fluoride content in serum, urine, and nails of these workers were found to be much more than the normal concentration. Out of the 192 workers, toxic effects of fluoride concentration were found in 137 workers. The team of specialists recommended wearing of gas-masks in the pot room, but nowhere has this recommendation been implemented.