Despite the availability of improved technologies, commitment of the facility operators and public vigilance, which have contributed towards a continuous improvement of the environmental performance of industrial processing plants, there are still local environmental problems in the nearby Eloor-Edayar industrial area.

Speaking on this issue to Business Line, following a report, Dr M.P. Sukumaran Nair, an environmental expert and former Chairman, IEI, Kochi, said that several industries had succeeded in codifying the best available techniques (BATs) applicable to them and are accepted as corner stones of the operating philosophy of their plants.

Thus, today industrial units are bound to put up adequate pollution control facilities operate them diligently and prove to the statutory authorities that they do not anytime, cross the limits stipulated for each of the pollution inventory, he said.

It is well known the Eloor area is one of the oldest industrial locations in the country. Development of this area started in 1944 and the location has been unique in the sense that it has seen the development of a number of process technologies spanning over 60 years right from the world's first wood gas based ammonia plant in 1944 to the latest generation ammonia plant.

A significant aspect of these developments in technology is that they became increasingly environment friendly over the years. Today most of the operating units around Eloor have the support of efficient effluent treatment facilities attached to the unit. Still issues such as polluting Periyar River, air pollution around plants, hazardous waste from different process units and radio active emissions are serious.

Typical locations

These issues are typical of industrial locations, be it in the Thana-Belapur area in Maharashtra, Baroda in Gujarat, Ranipet in Tamil Nadu, Ludwigshafen in Germany and Bellingham in the UK and the Florida coast in the US.

In short, the problem of this industrial area is not something unique but is common to all major industrial locations, said Dr Nair, the former Managing Director of Travancore Cochin Chemicals Ltd.

The best remedy to the pollution caused from the units lies in forcing existing industrial units to put up modern treatment facilities wherever such facilities are lacking, operate them most diligently, ensure discharges fully complying with the stipulations of the statutory authorities and ensure round the clock monitoring and documentation, he said.

Developed countries

In the developed countries, environmental status reports are published by the process industry to let the community know what they are doing and how far they are successful in complying with the mandatory stipulations. Certain recent developments in the industrial belt and the work of an NGO has aroused public scare that the area is so much polluted and hence not fit for habitation. It has taken samples from a neighbourhood factory and taken to US for analysis, the results were compared with the standards of the US Environment Protection Agency (USEPA) and published their report at a press conference held in New Delhi.

In fact, "here we do not lack any facility to analyse whatever contaminations that is being discharged from the different factories. Such reports become authentic only if they are discussed among the people who are responsible for the action and also among those who are intended to control such acts", he said.

Dr Nair said that real issues contributing to environmental degradation and having a high incidence of public health needed serious study and consideration. "I think the industrial units and the employees should organise themselves to commission a serious study in this matter and through an agency well known for its competence and credibility to bring out facts".

The study shall extend to the build up of toxics in the soil, air, water human, flora and fauna in this locality. Prevalence of occupational hazards and consequent diseases also are to be inquired into. Damage to the environment in its totality including of assessment of the likely extinction of different species in the past 5-6 decade shall be addressed. Such a report considering all facts will help to understand as to what kind of approach we should follow in this matter in the coming years.