A fire at Ankleshwar forced India to rethink how it handles hazardous waste. Drums carrying dangerous industrial sludge flew amid leaping flames and burst in the air at a waste storage at the industrial complex in Bharuch district of Gujarat on April 3 last year. Ash fell all around. People in nearby villages were told to evacuate; many suffered coughing, headache, nausea and burning sensation in the nose and throat.

It could have turned into a disaster worse than the Bhopal gas tragedy but for the change in the wind direction away from other factories (see ‘Bhopal to Bharuch’, Down To Earth, April 30, 2008).

Fire at Ankleshwar exposed careless handling of waste
Photographer:Ravleen Kaur

The fire burnt 250 tonnes of toxic industrial waste at the treatment, storage and disposal facility or tsdf in Ankleshwar. This waste had been sent there for incineration at 1,100°C because it was too dangerous to reuse or dump in a landfill. And burning it under ordinary conditions could release pollutants like cancer-causing dioxins and furans.

Waste oil and sludge—all paid for by industries—were leaking from barrels at Bharuch Enviro Infrastructure Ltd (BEIL), the tsdf that caught fire. Though BEIL —of which pesticide giant United Phosphorous is a major equity holder—cannot incinerate more than 50 tonnes of waste a day, it had crammed over 12,800 tonnes in sheds with narrow passage in between.

Prompted by the accident, the Central Pollution Control Board (cpcb) in April 2008 set up a committee under its former adviser R K Garg to stipulate detailed and explicit guidelines for storage of incinerable hazardous waste at captive incinerators and tsdfs, which are landfills with or without incinerators. In November, the board announced new guidelines (see Storage guidelines). Till then tsdfs were not bound by any time limit for storing hazardous incinerable waste, though being reactive and inflammable, the waste is risky to store— BEIL and the factory inspector in Ankleshwar believe the April fire occurred due to a reaction between the waste and the steel drum in which it was stored. Only industries were told not to store such waste for more than 90 days on their premises.

The committee decided that a tsdf should not store hazardous waste for more than six months. It noted sampling, analysis and mixing of the right kind of waste before incineration could take three months, but considering the time an incinerator requires for repairs, which is an annual affair, six months’ storage time is appropriate.

BEIL had waste lying there for up to two years, even though the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (gpcb) had allowed it 90 days’ storage time.

Industries in India produce hundreds of tonnes of waste every day that cpcb classifies harmful to our health and the environment. It can be toxic, flammable, corrosive, radioactive or reactive. Of this inflammable organic waste produced by industries like pesticide, pharmaceutical and refinery has to be incinerated. These are mostly synthetic chemicals that, scientists say, do not easily break down in the environment and deposit in human bodies through the food chain. They interfere with our biochemistry that affects our intelligence, immunity, behaviour and reproduction. Benzene used in bulk drug factories, for example, is a carcinogen. Exposure to it for a long time can be fatal.

Ten months after the fire—and despite orders to do so—neither gpcb nor the factory inspector of the area nor BEIL itself knows the nature of the waste burnt and the company it came from. On July 8, cpcb issued directions to BEIL regarding safety—like installing smoke and fire detectors, water sprinklers, providing ventilation, labelling drums to identify waste—under the Environment Protection Act 1986. The facility was asked to submit an action plan for incinerating the 12,800 tonnes of waste lying on its premises, and not to accept fresh waste till it had done so.

BEIL was given three months to act upon the directions. It trimmed the size of some sheds to create a wider passage between them, laid the storage areas with concrete flooring, installed fire hydrants and smoke detectors and labelled the drums.

“We have spent over Rs 7 crore on upgrading. Each drum has been painted and labelled as per the categories in hazardous waste rules,” said P N Parmeswaran, vice-president (environment) of United Phosphorus.

However, 4,000 tonnes of waste was still lying at the facility in December end. According to cpcb, 7,000 tonnes remained to be treated on October 13. So in more than six months, the company could take care of only 5,800 tonnes. Of this 1,000 tonnes were sent to another tsdf, Gujarat Enviro Protection and Infrastructure, in Surat, according to the documents obtained from gpcb under RTI. As per BEIL’s stated capacity at least 7,500 tonnes should have been incinerated in six months.

Environmental activists in Ankleshwar are now angry over the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s order in December allowing BEIL to incinerate 350 tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide (now Dow Chemical) plant in Bhopal. “When they are not able to manage the waste of this industrial area, how can they take care of the waste in the Union Carbide factory?” asked Zia Pathan, a lawyer in Ankleshwar and member of Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, a non-profit active in Gujarat.

Will BEIL be nailed? No criminal case is filed against it (see Where is the punishment?). Pollution control boards can act against the BEIL director under section 15 of the Environment Protection Act in case of loss of health or vegetation, for which the culprit can get jailed for five years. But they have not done so. Proving impact on health and vegetation is not easy. “If people have breathing disorders how can one know it is because of BEIL?” asked Pathan.

The waste has been lying at the plant since 1984 when the Bhopal gas tragedy occurred. The 350 metric tonnes of waste is at the centre of a legal wrangle between Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat governments.

The Gujarat government did not comply with similar orders passed by the high court in October 2007. A fire at the hazardous waste treatment facility (managed by Bharuch Enviro Infrastructure Ltd. or beil) and opposition from local non-profits were cited as main reasons for non-compliance.

The high court then got the beil site inspected by the Central Pollution Control Board (cpcb) which said that a backlog of 6,964 tonnes of waste would have to be cleared first. This finding was taken into account by the court when it said its order should be complied with in six weeks. Back of the envelop calculations however show that beil will have 2,464 tonnes excess waste to dispose and not 1,564 tonnes waste as estimated by cpcb in its affidavit. Therefore the plant will not be in a position to take in more stocks of toxic waste in January despite court deadline.

S K Nanda, state principal secretary for environment, said there was no question of

“allowing the waste to be brought to Gujarat”.

He was hopeful the issue would be resolved in the Supreme Court that is hearing an appeal of the state against contempt proceedings for not complying with earlier orders.

The apex court on November 8 had directed that chief secretaries of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and officials of the Union Ministry of Commerce should jointly decide on the modalities for disposing the waste. A joint report will be filed in the Supreme Court in January end when the case is scheduled for hearing. This will be much before the High Court deadline expires, Nanda said.

“Had it not been for the change in wind direction within 10 minutes of the fire, it could have spread to and destroyed all the nearby factories in the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (gidc) and villages”

says Manoj Kotadia, manager, fire and safety, Disaster Prevention and Management Centre, Ankleshwar.

Burning hazardous waste at the BEIL – Drum flying out of the fire

Burning hazardous waste at the BEIL – Part 1

Burning hazardous waste at the BEIL – Part 2

Burning hazardous waste at the BEIL – Part 6

The fire at BEIL was brought under control within 24 hours but people in surrounding villages are still reeling from the effects of toxic gases: a burning sensation in eyes and nose, difficulty in breathing and in some cases, as Down To Earth saw, rashes and fever. The cause of the fire is not known but preliminary investigation by the central and state pollution control boards and the local administration has exposed gross violations of environmental and safety norms at the treatment, storage and disposal facility (tsdf), which has also bid to incinerate the hazardous waste lying at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal—a lucrative contract of over a million dollars. As Down To Earth went to press, it was reported that the Industrial Health and Safety Department had registered a case against beil under the Gujarat Factories Act, 1948, for making seven sheds for storing hazardous waste when it had permission for only two. It was the seventh shed that caught fire. Inquiries into the lapses of the extremely hazardous facility are on.

Dark dusk Black smoke at one of the sheds where the barrels are stored was first noticed at 5.30 p.m. “My office people observed the smoke and informed me,’ said P N Parmeshwaran, vice-president, environment, beil. However, the Disaster Prevention and Management Centre, just 2 km away, was informed only by 6 p.m. People in Jitali village, about a kilometre from beil, saw barrels flying in the air. But the company’s alarm at the panchayat building failed to ring. Later, the villagers found out that wire connections had not been made.

“Soon it was dark, the fumes were noxious and for a long time it was difficult to breathe,’ said Nilesh Kumar Patel of Jitali as he showed Down To Earth the footage of the blaze on his cell phone. Jitali was one of the three villages put on high alert; people were told to evacuate. The other two villages are Sarangpur and Dhadhaal Inam. Huge chunks of ashy waste fell all around. “Stone-like things fell on my roof. In the morning they were still stinking and oozing fumes,’ said Momina Shoib Kazi of Jitali. The impact was worst in Jitali because it was in the wind’s direction.

“High wind velocity and a change in the direction (towards empty fields) of the wind from west to east prevented a big disaster.Wind velocity of over 20 km per hour did not let the smoke settle, otherwise the barrels lying all over the place would have caught fire and it would also have been difficult for us to wade through the smoke,’ said Kotadia.

Children at Dhadhaal Inam, a kilometre west of the facility, had just come out of the madrasa when they heard explosions. They ran in the direction of the blasts and ended up with headache and a burning sensation in the nose and throat. Asif Iqbal Panchbaya, 10, has got rashes and high fever. “I took him to Bharuch for treatment but his condition has worsened,’ said his father Iqbal Panchbaya. The Primary Health Centre sent squads to the villages the same night. It says the fire affected 89 people.

Shocking irregularities
To understand the effects of pollution one needs to know the kind of toxins released in the air. But beil officials could not explain the nature of the waste burnt. “It was a kind of tarry waste or a solvent-based waste of high calorific value. We are trying to ascertain what exactly it was,’ said Parmeshwaran. The Hazardous Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989, however, lay down that all tsdfs have to keep a record of the kind of waste received and check the waste before accepting it for treatment.

RAVLEEN KAUR

Left in haze: Nature of waste unknown

“Thirty-seven kinds of waste are stored at a landfill site. Under the hazardous wastes rules a tsdf has to provide a monthly report to the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (gpcb) of how much waste it received, its classification, how much was stored and how much incinerated. The gpcb should reveal these reports. The company is at fault, but so is the pollution board for improper monitoring,’ says Yogesh Pandya, managing trustee of Safety, Health and Environment Association, a Bharuch ngo.

On the second day after the fire, gpcb installed machines at Jitali, beil and at Aventis’ factory to monitor the air quality. It also told Down To Earth that parameters were by and large under control. But gpcb did not collect samples for dioxins, furans and volatile organic compounds, which would indicate the toxicity of the air. “No lab in India is equipped to test dioxins and furans, so what can we do?’ said R G Shah, environment engineer, gpcb. Asked about heavy metals, Shah said samples were sent to the Netel India labs in Mumbai on April 4. When Down To Earth checked with the company, samples had not been received till the evening of April 8.

Since nobody knows what was burnt—as happened in the Bhopal gas tragedy—it is difficult to monitor contaminants or check for toxicity. While incinerators burn waste at very high temperatures to eliminate toxins, the fire burnt the hazardous waste at a much lower temperature. This is bound to release high levels of contaminants, which will settle on land and water.

Even the quantity of waste stored at beil raised eyebrows. According to the records it submitted to gpcb, 12,825 tonnes of oil was lying in its compound—though it cannot treat more than 50 tonnes a day. The hazardous wastes rules state an industrial unit cannot store waste in its compound for more than 90 days. In May 2007, M S H Sheikh, director of Surat-based ngo Brackish Water Research Centre, had written to gpcb about the dangers of facilities storing hazardous waste for long. But no action was reportedly taken.

beil charges factories Rs 15 per kg of hazardous waste for incineration and the money is taken in advance. That means it collected over Rs 19 crore for 12,825 tonnes of waste oil but did not treat it. Activists also point out that the fire saved the company Rs 37.50 lakh, the cost of treating 250 tonnes of waste.

What caused fire?
BEIL officials, police, district administration and even gpcb are tight-lipped about the cause.

“One of the barrels might have gone in unchecked and some reaction could have caused the explosion. However, we cannot say anything till proper investigation is done,’ said Ashok Panjwani, director, beil.

The three-member committee constituted by the district collector, who is also the head of the District Crisis Group, submitted its report on April 9. “We have been unable to find out the cause of the fire but most probably it was due to a pyrophoric reaction between steel drums and stored waste,’ Harshad Patel, sub-divisional magistrate, Ankleshwar, told Down To Earth. The report noted many safety lapses at beil: no sensor to detect gas leakage; dangerous chemicals not identified and not kept in a separate area; very few fire-fighting equipment, Patel said. “We have proposed strong action against beil under the Indian Factories Act and under environmental laws. The collector has to give directions,’ he added.

“It is beyond our power to lodge an fir against them. But we will take action under environment laws. It is obviously a case of negligence and the fire is human-induced. We will act when the actual reason is ascertained,’ said Sanjiv Tyagi, member secretary, gpcb.

Safety, what’s that?

A visit to the accident site brought more shocks. Not a single fire hydrant of the company was visible. “It took long to douse the fire because the approach road was congested and the smoke dense,’ said Kotadia. A wall in the rear of the compound had to be broken to make way for fire tenders. According to Ibrahim Patel, a medical practitioner in Jitali, the situation could have been tragic had workers been trapped inside. About 40 labourers work at the site. “There is no emergency exit in the high compound wall,’ he said.

“I came here early morning after the fire and saw people covering the oil with mud. All that will seep into the groundwater. How can they run their business in the name of safe disposal?’ asks Sheikh. Workers also complain they do not get safety masks and often feel dizzy.

At this facility where extremely toxic waste is stockpiled, instead of increased monitoring and increased safety conditions, the reverse seems to be the case. Clearly, the lessons of the Bhopal tragedy have not been learnt.