India 2012, an e-waste bin

What a dump, and it is growing by the hour. Almost 40 per cent of the municipal and plastic waste generated in India is not collected, and half of the organic waste goes untreated. And then there is the growing problem of electronic waste.

By 2012, India will generate the most e-waste in the world, second only to China. Most cities do not have adequate infrastructure to manage the growing household and plastic rubbish, even though there are technologies available for treatment and reuse.
"There are only 110 facilities in the country for treating hardly 50 per cent of the organic waste generated," says the environment ministry's report on Road Map on Management of Waste in India A committee of the ministry has sought a law for waste-management with punitive action against defaulters.
The report call for higher penalty for those failing to properly dispose of municipal garbage. "Unless the city administrations get serious about waste management, the problem could become a major health risk," an official, who didn't wish to be identified, said. But, it's the economic growth that poses the biggest challenge - managing e-waste, which can be a discarded refrigerator or end-of-life cellphone or a laptop.
By 2012, India will generate over 800,000 million tonne (mt) of e-waste every year. At present, Mumbai tops the e-waste chart followed by Delhi. Western countries are adding to this mound. The estimate is not known as the ministry believes much of the e-waste is brought in illegally. NGOs such as Toxic Link have raised health concern over US and Europe dumping e-waste in India.
Even though disposing e-waste is defined under Hazardous Waste Management Rules in 2008, most cities don't have a system to collect and dispose of discarded gadgets. "Producers should be bound to take back their products after the life of the product is over and to get it recycled/disposed in. without health risks," says the report released on Thursday.
Poor management of the industry-generated hazardous waste is another worry. Annually 6.2 mt of the waste is generated and 2.1 mt goes untreated. The report talks of 36,000 hazardous waste industries, which include those manufacturing chemicals and plastic. Indiscriminate disposal has left many places environmentally degraded, says the report.

China and India: Neighbors Need to Collaborate for Sake of Global Environment

With large and growing economies and populations, China and India will strongly influence the quality of the global environment for years to come. While their political relationship is strained, it's critical the two countries work together to slow global warming, deforestation, water shortages and other environmental issues, says a Michigan State University scientist  and colleauges."China and India are the two largest countries in terms of population," said Jianguo "Jack" Liu, MSU University Distinguished Professor of fisheries and wildlife who holds the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability. Liu is internationally known for his work on environmental sustainability and coupled human and natural systems. "Even while the rest of the world is in a recession, the economies of China and India are growing and the countries' consumption of raw materials is increasing. Cooperation between the two is vital to mitigating negative environmental impacts." In "China, India and the Environment," published in the March 19 issue of the journal Science, Liu and co-authors advocate using scientific collaboration as a bridge to help break down political barriers between the two nations -- ultimately benefiting the larger global society. All the authors have strong research programs in one or both of the countries.
"We all have a huge interest in a sustainable world and the way we're managing it now, it simply isn't sustainable," said Peter Raven, co-author and president of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Raven also is a foreign member of both the Chinese and Indian academies of science. "The problems get worse every year; biodiversity loss and climate change have clear global significance. Our thesis is the two countries share so much adjacent territory that the environmental benefits should be obvious and, informed by scientific analysis, should provide a bridge between them."
According to Liu, water availability could be an increasingly challenging issue facing the two countries and one that will require careful cooperation. Many rivers flow through both China and India -- if one country builds too many dams on its side to generate hydroelectric power, it will likely cause water shortages downstream in the other country.
"Water is a huge issue," said Liu. "It's being discussed extensively. We need to make people aware of the benefits of cooperation. It's more than just China and India that will be affected if these two countries don't work together. The environmental impacts will be felt around the world, including in the United States."
"One thing we have learned from the recession is that without sustainability there cannot be unlimited growth," added Kamaljit Bawa, University of Massachusetts-Boston distinguished professor of biology and president of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment in Bangalor, India. "The two countries are not facing recession and it is time for them to exercise environmental stewardship. Future economic growth is contingent upon this stewardship."
In addition to Liu, Raven and Bawa, other paper authors are Lian Pin Koh, of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems in Zurich, Switzerland; Tien Ming Lee, of the University of California-San Diego and Yale University; P.S. Ramakrishnan, of Jawaharlal Nehru University, in Delhi, India; and Douglas Yu and Ya-ping Zhang, of the Kunming Institute of Zoology, in Yunnan, China.
Liu's research is supported by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, the National Science Foundation and NASA. He serves as principal investigator of the International Network of Research on Coupled Human and Natural Systems, funded by the NSF and coordinated by the MSU Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, which Liu also directs.
Michigan State University has been advancing knowledge and transforming lives through innovative teaching, research and outreach for more than 150 years. MSU is known internationally as a major public university with global reach and extraordinary impact. Its 17 degree-granting colleges attract scholars worldwide who are interested in combining education with practical problem solving..

Massive sandstorm turns Beijing's streets yellow

Tons of sand from deserts in China's interior blew into Beijing Saturday, shrouding China's capital in a yellow-orange haze that authorities warned made the air quality "hazardous."
There were few people out on streets where pedestrians could taste the dust. Many of those who had ventured from their homes were wearing facemasks, and some left footprints in the yellow film that had settled on the city's streets.
Beijing's weather forecasting bureau gave the air quality a rare "5," or hazardous, rating and added that it was "not suitable for morning exercises." Parks and open spaces are usually packed from early in the day with enthusiasts doing martial arts, ballroom dancing and other activities.
The sandstorms underline the environmental degradation investors identify as one of the long-term constraints on growth in China, and concern about its impact has made a less resource-intensive model of growth a priority for Beijing.
The government has spent millions of dollars on projects to rein in the spread of deserts, planting trees and trying to protect what plant cover remains in marginal areas.
But the battle is being fought against a backdrop of rising average temperatures and increasing pressure on water resources after three decades of booming growth.
The sandstorm hit Beijing around midnight, carrying huge amounts of dust and heading south east, the official Xinhua news agency said. In northern Changping district, the wind reached speeds of up to 100 km per hour (60 mph).
The swirling clouds of dust and sand had blanketed the interior provinces of Qinghai and Gansu, and western Xinjiang region, before sweeping over the capital, Xinhua said.