For over a decade, villages in Tamil Nadu bordering Kerala have become dump yards of almost every kind of waste, often unsegregated, from Kerala. While some lorries have valid documents, numerous other instances of stealth dumping have been recorded. No amount of vigil has helped end this obnoxious practice – a major health risk because of the presence of biomedical waste. A TNM ground investigation into KERALA’S CROSS-BORDER DUMP YARDS.
While on his way from Vadakkancherry in Kerala to his hometown Pollachi on the evening of January 10, 2023, Vivek Appusamy spotted an Intravenous Fluid (IV) bottle with a tube falling off one of two lorries covered with tarpaulin that he had come across. “I didn’t have to think much to figure out what it meant,” says Vivek, who lost no time in passing the information on to the Tamil Nadu administration. The lorries could have been transporting hazardous biomedical waste for illegal dumping.
Vivek, a 35-year-old honey farmer, felt there was no point in stopping the lorries in Kerala. So he kept tailing them and tipped off the Pollachi sub-collector. Once they entered the TN border, the lorries were seized with the help of local residents in Divansapudur. Vivek says one doesn’t know how many such lorries pass through Tamil Nadu checkposts daily, unnoticed. “This cannot happen without the knowledge of officers deployed at the checkposts,” he alleged. Several incidents of waste dumping reported from districts of Tamil Nadu that border Kerala show that his concern is valid.
On January 19, TNM visited the Meenakshipuram checkpost in Pollachi, where the two lorries (KL 47 F 2203, and KL 64 F 7440) were seized. The vehicles, used for transporting granite boulders for construction, were loosely covered with thin sheets. A health inspector, after a delay of many days, certified it as solid waste. A strong wind or a small spell of rain could make things worse as they were filled with unsegregated solid waste, including blood-stained napkins and biomedical waste.
Seized lorry with waste at Meenakshipuram checkpost in Anamalai
In December 2022, Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) chairperson M Jayanthi wrote a letter to her Kerala counterpart to issue an order to local bodies in the state to stop the illegal dumping of biomedical and solid waste in Tamil Nadu. The letter was an indication that the issue was serious and needed interventions from both the state governments if it had to be stopped. A statement released by the TNPCB also had hotline numbers on which citizens could tip the board off about dumping incidents.
The waste on the two lorries was from a local body in Kerala – the Kalamassery Municipality, as per the statement given by the drivers, Rineesh (42) and Sandeep (36) hailing from Thrissur. They claimed that they had documents to show that the waste was not meant to be dumped – it was bound for a private cement factory in Dindigul district’s Karikali to be burnt as fuel. As per the documents, Tiffot Private Limited, a transporter based in Ernakulam, had authorisation from the Kerala State Pollution Control Board to collect the plastic waste. However, it is illegal to transport unsegregated waste and they were booked under Sections 269 and 278 of the Indian Penal Code. TNM tried to reach the cement factory in Dindigul but received no response.
The Action Taken Report on Illegal Dumping of Biomedical Wastes and Solid Wastes in the border districts of Coimbatore, Tirunelveli, Tenkasi, and Kanyakumari submitted by the TNPCB dated September 13, 2022 said that “on several occasions, the vehicles along with the solid waste/biomedical waste have been re-transported to Kerala following the intervention of the district administration and TNPCB besides imposing severe fine, etc.”
One of the first incidents when people in this region noticed waste from Kerala being dumped on their land was in April 2021 in Chemmanampathy. When a hospital owner from Kerala tried to dump biomedical waste on land he had bought in Anaimalai, local residents had seized the trucks. Since then, checkposts in the region have become vigilant. That is why not all vehicles are taking routes with checkposts. Every time trucks with waste from Kerala cross the border with the intention of stealth dumping, they follow different routes. The pattern of dumping is also different. The issue is currently faced by six border districts of Tamil Nadu – Kanyakumari, Tenkasi, Tirunelveli, Theni, Coimbatore, and the Nilgiris.
At the checkpost in Chemmanampathy which made headlines in 2021, there was one policeman on duty when TNM visited. Rajan, a resident of the village, told us, “After 2021 we haven’t witnessed waste dumping in our locality.” On April 8, 2021, Anaimalai police registered cases against seven persons – Saji Antony, the owner of the land, Thankachan the caretaker who was from Idukki, two persons identified as Suresh (Thrissur) and Vinoth (Gopalapuram, Pollachi), and drivers KT Jonny, NS Vinesh, and KV Ratheesh from Thrissur. They seized one earthmover, three lorries that carried the medical waste, and three bikes.
The family that owns the hospital had bought the land allegedly to dispose of the medical waste. As per the FIR, the land had many 10-ft deep pits. Meant for dumping waste, the pits were 8 ft wide and 40 ft long. The ownership of the land has changed after the incident, TNM has learnt.
On the way from Chemmanampathy village to Anaimalai, near coconut and mango groves, we saw yellow and white-coloured polythene sacks of waste dumped by the roadside. There was a foul smell emanating from the sacks that had been torn open by dogs. The waste – which included postpartum napkins with blood stains, syringes, and old clothes – had spilled out.
Farmers seized lorries with waste in Chemmanampathy
Vivek says autos and mini lorries are also being used for waste dumping. “Pollachi has several small roads that connect with Kerala,” he adds.
Pradeep, a shopkeeper in Anaimalai, notes that sometimes even poultry lorries are used to transport such waste. Some space would be reserved in the centre of the vehicles for the waste and the police would not bother to check seriously because of the foul-smelling poultry cages stacked outside.
Jameen Kaliyapuram, Nadupuni, Vadakku Kadu, and Gopalapuram in Pollachi are some of the checkposts through which vehicles enter carrying waste. The Meenakshipuram and Chemmanampathy checkposts under Anaimalai jurisdiction are also considered hotspots. In Coimbatore, the lorries enter via Walayar and Velanthavalam checkposts. Vehicles can conveniently choose to avoid checkposts to reach Pollachi from Palakkad as there are around 32 smaller roads that connect the towns.
Pollachi sub-collector S Priyanka told TNM that they are interacting with residents and elected representatives of the local bodies of border villages to sensitise them on the issue. “The dumping is happening in all the border districts of Tamil Nadu. We receive such complaints once in a while and initiate actions if they are genuine,” Priyanka says.
Hari Krishnan, Inspector, Anaimalai police station, says instances of biomedical waste dumping were rare; however, all other kinds of waste including meat and fish waste and municipal waste gets dumped at regular intervals. “We are vigilant at checkposts. The vehicles carry certificates from the Kerala government and this is one reason why we cannot proceed further. We hand over the lorries to the court and ‘Return of Property’ will be done after vehicle owners legally approach the court. Most of the time we register cases under IPC 269 and IPC 278. These are bailable offences. So we let them go under station bail,” he says.
They believe that it would be impossible for anyone to dump waste in Anaimalai without support from big farmers. “The bigger roads are being monitored. So they either choose smaller roads or transfer the waste from big vehicles to smaller ones to dump them in groves owned by big farmers. This could be how they escape the police,” the officer adds. While not all vehicles carrying waste enter with the intention of dumping, entry of unsegregated biomedical waste together with other solid waste into Tamil Nadu from Kerala is a reality.
“Transportation or disposal of unsegregated waste is not allowed,” points out Sai Sathyajith, an advocate who appears for the TNPCB. Transporting unsegregated waste to cement factories, even if it is to be burned as fuel, makes no sense, Sai adds.
As per the Biomedical Waste Management Rules, 2016, no untreated biomedical waste shall be mixed with other waste. It needs to be segregated and filled into colour-coded containers or bags at the point of generation in accordance with Schedule 1 of the Rules, prior to its storage, transportation, treatment, and disposal.
Police sources say they are not equipped to determine the kind of waste being transported. “Most of the time biomedical waste is found mixed with domestic and solid waste. We have seen clothes with blood stains, napkins, and IP drip bottles in the lorries. So we ask the Health Department to give a certificate based on sample test results,” an officer says.
The yellow-coloured non-chlorinated plastic bags should be used to store human and animal anatomical waste and soiled waste contaminated with body fluids like dressings, plaster casts, and cotton swabs, expired or discarded medicines and chemical wastes. Disposable items like catheters, tubes and intravenous tubes, and urine bags should be placed in the red-coloured non-chlorinated plastic bags or containers. Sharps waste such as needles, scalpels, and blades should be stored in puncture-proof, tamper-proof containers, while discarded glassware should be placed in cardboard boxes with blue markings.
The waste has to be transported in vehicles labelled biohazard/cytotoxic with information on category and quantity along with the date of generation and details of sender. The vehicles should comply with the conditions stipulated by the State Pollution Control Board or Pollution Control Committee in addition to those by the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (59 of 1988).
Disposal by deep burial is permitted only in rural or remote areas where there is no access to common biomedical waste treatment facilities and must be done with prior approval from the respective pollution control boards.
“Sending unsegregated biomedical waste in open containers is illegal and a major violation of the BMWM Rules 2016. It’s also a health hazard,” says Dharmesh Shah, Kerala-based public policy researcher. Dharmesh, who researches the implementation of environmental law, adds that many hospitals don’t train their staff to strictly follow the colour-coding system for safe disposal. “They dump all types of waste – be it pathological or radioactive, which needs different treatment – together and send it to the treatment facilities. This creates more health hazards to the people working in the treatment facilities,” Dharmesh says.
Biomedical waste dumped in open space in Pollachi
The National Green Tribunal (Southern Zone), which took note of the incident of biomedical waste dumping in April 2021, had directed the Additional Chief Secretary, Tamil Nadu and the Principal Secretary for Environment to ensure monitoring of vehicles in border districts to stop illegal dumping. Thrissur Municipal Corporation, Palakkad Municipality, and collectors of the two districts were also directed by the NGT to ascertain whether the supervisory mechanism undertaken by them is properly implemented. They were also asked to file a detailed report regarding the same. Another order from NGT, dated December 24, 2021, directed the respective state governments to prevent such incidents from being repeated.
The Kerala and TN pollution control boards were also directed to consider an online monitoring system to keep track of raw materials procured and how it is being used and disposed of by healthcare facilities. “If this system is evolved, any mischief committed by the healthcare units can be detected and if it is linked online to the TNPCB, then they can find out whether there is any gap between actual generation and disposal by the healthcare units,” it said.
Many we met on the ground believe that these incidents reduce for some time after vehicles are caught, but tend to increase after a lull. Public anger against illegal dumping is so high that the Tamil Nadu government recently announced that anyone transporting such waste would be booked under the Goondas Act.
TNM also spoke to Abi, a senior TV journalist, who says that dumping of all kinds of waste, including biomedical, has been happening for nearly two-and-a-half decades now. “Nobody wants to go beyond the drivers and lorries,” says the journalist, who has reported from the Pollachi region for more than three decades. “Apart from polluting nature, it also leads to new diseases. Private hospitals should be held responsible for the biomedical waste they dump here,” he says.