The authorities have no concrete information on pollutants emitted following major fire outbreaks at the dumping yards at Brahmapuram and North Kalamassery on January 18.
Thick fumes had emanated from plastic waste heaps at both the sites. Fire personnel took over three hours to douse the flames. However, there was no scientific assessment of the release of pollutants from the sites.
Officials of the State Pollution Control Board (PCB) admitted that air pollution monitoring could not be done, as thick fumes had engulfed a large area. Moreover, the regional office of the board lacked the necessary scientific equipment to assess possible dioxin emissions, they said.
Incidentally, the Ernakulam district administration and the local bodies concerned had not acted upon the findings of a detailed study done by the National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST) after a major fire at Brahmapuram on February 23, 2019.
The study had revealed that the levels of dioxin in residual ash samples were in the range observed in various infamous dumping sites in Vietnam, Philippines, Cambodia, Netherlands, Greece, and the United States. The dioxin level reported at a dumping yard at Perungudi in Chennai was 52 ng TEQ/kg. The level observed at Brahmapuram was about three times higher than that at Perungudi, it said.
The Kochi Corporation and the Kalamassery Municipality are yet to confirm the reason behind the fire on January 18. PCB officials said there was every chance of methane-type gas formation owing to the presence of huge quantities of plastic waste at the sites. The NIIST study had proved that such fire incidents could cause serious issues, including emission of dioxins, they added.
