The government announced that Delhi figures amongst the top ten largest plastic waste producing cities in the country. In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, the Environment Minister, Prakash Javadekar, said that based on a study conducted by the Central Pollution Control Board and Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and Technology for 60 cities in the country during 2010-11, it was observed that 10 cities viz. Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Surat, Kanpur and Pune generate more plastic waste. He said that whilst his ministry has notified the Plastic Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2011, the government has taken a number of steps to ensure the safety and health of workers through enactment of various statutes in the form of Factories Act, 1948.

Javadekar also mentioned that the levels of sulphur dioxide (SO2) (annual average) are within the prescribed norms across the country. However, the levels of PM10 (particulate matter 10) exceed the norms in majority of the cities, whereas nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is high in 24 cities including Delhi. He added that the government has taken various measures to check pollution, which include supply of cleaner fuels as per auto fuel policy, use of gaseous fuels for public transport, pollution under control certificates for use in vehicles, stringent source specific emission standards, strict compliance of source specific emission standards, use of beneficiated coal in thermal power plants and others.

Source: PTI