Formaldehyde

Formaldehyde manufacturers operating without prior Environmental Clearance (EC). The applicant contended that prior EC is mandatory and the State lacked jurisdiction to exempt this requirement. The applicant raised environmental concerns including unauthorized groundwater usage, non-compliance with hazardous chemical rules, damage to crops, soil, and groundwater, and pollution contributing to health hazards such as cancer. The units were using ground water of approximately 6 Lakhs litres per day without requisite permission of the Ground Water Authority. There is also non-compliance of Manufacture, Storage, and Import of Hazardous Chemicals Rules, 1989. No requisite safety measures have been allotted. There has been incidents of damage to the crops, soil and ground water for which no adequate compensation has been recovered. TDS of the water has been reduced to almost zero by use of Hydrochloric Acid (33%) and pH level has increased. Untreated effluents are dumped back into the ground water through reverse borewells. In the condensation process, excess steam is discharged, using chimney adding to the air pollution. There is no mechanism to check leaching of methanol from underground tanks. This is one of the causes of cancer.