Namaste Panditji...

There is an Electro-Plating factory near my house which is dumping untreated effluents in a pit near my house. There is a lot of foul smell 24 hours a day. To whom should I complain? Is there any legal recourse to shift or close down this factory?

Ravindran Venkatesh Naidu
via email

Dear Naiduji,

There are three steps which you can adopt for stopping this company from operating:

1. First, complain to the Pollution Control Board (PCB). If you are in an industrial town, there would be a Regional Pollution Control Board. The PCB has a complaint book where you file your complaint. Also write a letter to the Regional Officer at the office and copy it to the Chairman/ Member Secretary of that State Pollution Control Board. In case you live in a state capital, you can file your complaint directly at the head office of the Pollution Control Board. You can also send a copy of this complaint to this industry to draw their attention to your problems.
       
2. You need to get media attention to this company, so please forward the copy of your complaint (to PCB), and write to the local media. If they feature your complaint and do some articles, it will bring attention to your cause. You can also write to national media (newspaper) as well as to magazines like DTE to do feature stories on this company.
      
3. Finally you can file a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) against the company in the court. Waste from electroplating industry is hazardous and if the company is not treating it, it is a major concern. You can gather information to support your claim that the industry is causing damage to public health. In case you can get support from any local NGO or some other individual, it will also help your cause.

Why is that biogas cannot be filled inside a cylinder like LPG and CNG and distributed to homes? What is the technical difficulty in doing so?

sujimurali@hotmail.com

Dear Muraliji,

Technology for storing biogas for later use is available but there are some difficulties. To be used as a domestic fuel in a cylinder, it needs to be compressed first. Today it’s a costly affair and gobar gas through pipelines work out much cheaper.

The methane – carbon dioxide ratio favours compression in case of LPG and CNG. The higher the methane percentage the better. Biogas contains about 50 to 55 per cent methane while the percentage is as high as 80 in case of CNG. LPG has higher percentages of propane and butane, the properties of which resemble that of methane.

I am doing a report on sharks and the measures countries are taking to reduce shark attacks. Can you send me any good sites that I could look into?

Julie R
via email

Some sites that you could check into are:
http://www.mote.org/~rhueter/sharks/attacks.phtml
http://www.sharksurvivor.com/tips.html
http://www.npca.org/marine_and_coastal/marine_wildlife/avoid_attack.asp

Are there any Indian standards for marine diesel emissions in naval ships?

Capt. R K Rana, Indian Navy

There are no Indian standards for diesel emissions from ships. The US has some regulations, check it out at US EPA website www.epa.gov

Let us all say no to plastic because it never finishes. If you put it in fire then also it will not finish. Sometimes if you put it in fire, it may cause cancer. If an animal eats it up, it will get stuck in its stomach and it can also die. Say no to plastic. I think you know that plastic is harmful so please don’t use plastic.

Mandavi Chaudhury (Class IV)
Indirapuram, Ghaziabad

Here are some informations that I would like to share with you:

• Snapping turtles can bite off a person’s fingers with its powerful jaws.
     
• Tree frogs have a suction pad on their toes that help them to cling to branches.
     
• The mako shark is a fast streamlined swimmer whose speed allows it to attack large sword fish.
     
• The octopus moves by jet propulsion but can also crawl slowly on its eight arms.

Tanmay Bhatt
Noida, UP

I thoroughly enjoyed the GT on ‘ecological lagaan’. A recent article of mine for the Resurgence magazine titled Loot, looks at the East India company’s actions in light of today’s concerns. What I found remarkable was the Company’s invisibility in its hometown of London; nothing marks its power or crimes. It is as if the city of London is embarrassed at one of its most powerful creations.

Nick Robins
Albert Grove, London

Congratulations to this valuable neatly prepared environmental issue. I am a retired lecturer from Turkey. I have not searched all previous issues of Gobar Times. But here I wanted to mention about a new virus carried by mosquitoes.

This virus is called West Nile Virus and its source is Middle East, around the Israel Area. I read all this in a serious science journal. But I could not recall the name. It may be New Scientist or Nature.

Check out this address: http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/westnil2. html. I am sure you would be able to find millions of address in one search but I wanted to only help. I wish you all the best and good luck in your work in environment.

Dr H. Emel Dinseven
via email

This is a good effort to make people understand the different aspects of environment. Reading Gobar Times is fun and easy. Keep the good work up. I would like to see Gobar Times with more information. Best wishes!

Deepa Pathak
Andrews Ganj, New Delhi

Let us try to do these things:

1. We can give our clothes to the poor instead of throwing
      
2. We should reuse our plastic bags and keep them with us instead of throwing them
      
3. We should not throw fruit peel on the road.
        
4. We can make origami out of waste paper instead of throwing it.

Fairy Khan (Class IV)
Tiny Tots School, New Delhi