The process of dumping 10 tonnes of waste into the incinerator began on Thursday (March 06) as part of the second round of testing of burning the waste of Bhopal's Union Carbide factory at a disposal plant in Pithampur Industrial Area. It is estimated that it will take about 55 hours to destroy the Union Carbide waste. State Pollution Control Board officials gave this information.

According to officials, during the second round of testing, all the emissions standards have remained within the limit so far. As part of the plan to dispose of 337 tonnes of waste from the closed Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, it was transported to a waste disposal plant operated by a private company in Pithampur, about 250 km from the state capital, on January 2.

Testing of waste disposal as per High Court order

According to the order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, the disposal of this waste is to be tested in three rounds following safety norms and the report of all three tests is to be presented before the court on March 27. Srinivas Dwivedi, regional officer of the State Pollution Control Board, told the media, "The second round of incineration of 10 tonnes of Union Carbide factory waste as a test is going on at the waste disposal plant in Pithampur. Under this, 180 kg of waste is being dumped in the incinerator every hour."

Online monitoring of air quality of areas

During this time, the various emissions from the plant as well as the air quality of the surrounding areas are being monitored online. He said that as part of the second round of testing, the process of dumping garbage in the incinerator began at 11:06 am on Thursday and before that the incinerator was run empty for about 12 hours to reach the set temperature.

What did scientist Sanjay Kumar Jain say?

State Pollution Control Board scientist Sanjay Kumar Jain said, "So far during the second round of testing, all the emissions have been found to be within the standard limits. Under this test, it is estimated that 10 tonnes of waste will take about 55 hours to burn.

 Officials of the State Pollution Control Board said that the first round of trial incineration of 10 tonnes of Union Carbide factory waste at the Pithampur waste disposal plant began on February 28 and ended on March 3.

The first round of testing lasted about 75 hours

He said that the first round of testing lasted for about 75 hours and during this time 135 kg of waste was dumped in the plant's incinerator every hour. Officials said that in the first round of disposal of Union Carbide factory waste, the emissions of particulate matter (PM), sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen fluoride and total organic carbon from the Pithampur plant were found to be within the standard limits.

Methyl isocyanate gas is not present in the waste

According to the state government, the waste from the Union Carbide factory includes soil from the premises of the defunct unit, reactor residues, Sevin (pesticide) residues, naphthal residues and 'semi-processed' residues. The State Pollution Control Board says that according to scientific evidence, the effect of Sevin and naphthal chemicals in this waste has now become almost negligible. According to the board, at present there is no presence of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas in this waste and it does not contain any kind of radioactive particles.