India dumping nuclear waste in Bangladesh
India now envisages increasing the contribution of nuclear power to overall electricity generation capacity from 2.8% to 9% within 25 years. By 2017, India's installed nuclear power generation capacity will increase to 10,080 MW. As of 2009, India stands 9th in the world in terms of number of operational nuclear power reactors. Indigenous atomic reactors include TAPS-3, and -4, both of which are 540 MW reactors. India's US$ 717 million fast breeder reactor project is expected to be operational by 2012-13.
Each year thousands of tons of nuclear wastes are released from the nuclear power plants, dumping of which is one of the biggest challenges. Since 2001, India has started exporting its nuclear wastes by mixing the same with ash from the thermal power stations. Bangladeshi cement manufacturers alone imports more than five hundred thousand tons of fly ash from India and produces fly ash mixed cement.
The whole concept was first initiated by a company named Holcim, which later successfully infected the idea into the brains of other cement manufacturers in Bangladesh. Through such notorious steps of Holcim and subsequently by other cement manufacturers in Bangladesh, most of the newly constructed domestic and commercial buildings in the country are now becoming slightly or significantly polluted with nuclear contamination, which not only poses huge threat to human lives but also puts substantial threat to the very environment of the country. India also is exporting its nuclear wastes to some other neighboring nations as well as countries in the African continent as well as in the Middle East either by mixing with thermal-power plant generated ashes or with other chemical compounds.
Full Text:
http://www.timesofassam.com/headlines/india-dumping-nuclear-waste-in-bangladesh/
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