Environmental groups oppose Centre’s move to exempt WTE plants from Environment Impact Assessment

Amid resistance to the proposed waste-to-energy plant at Kodungaiyur, environmental groups have criticised the Union government for proposing to exempt all waste-to-energy (WTE) and municipal solid-waste management facilities from mandatory public hearings and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) requirements. 

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) issued a draft notification on October 3 proposing that ‘Common Municipal Solid Waste Management Facility” projects — including WTE plants, landfills, and facilities generating electricity from hazardous waste — no longer require prior environmental clearance under the EIA Notification, 2006. The Ministry has also classified these projects as “Essential Environmental Services”.

In its notification, the MoEFCC said solid-waste management systems play an important role in protecting environmental and human health, advancing the circular economy, and reducing air, land and water pollution. 

Since these facilities are already regulated under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had placed incinerators under the “blue category” of industries, it argued that exempting them from the EIA process would support faster implementation.

However, environmental groups have rejected this reasoning. Poovulagin Nanbargal has called for the immediate withdrawal of the exemption, arguing that WTE plants are among the most hazardous polluting facilities and cannot be safely operated. Citing studies from Chennai, Delhi and Hyderabad, the group said WTE plants have repeatedly been shown to cause severe environmental and health damage.

“By removing the requirement for prior environmental clearance, the government is effectively silencing the communities most affected by these projects,” the group said in a statement.

The National Alliance for Climate and Ecological Justice (NACEJ), in a recent statement, said that the reclassification of WTE incinerators to the less stringent “blue” category falsely portrays them as benign “Essential Environmental Services” despite their generation of vast quantities of hazardous bottom and fly ash requiring secured landfilling.

“Inspections by CPCB itself have documented high levels of heavy metals and toxic chemicals in ash and leachate from Delhi’s WTE plants, contradicting the claim that these facilities produce no hazardous waste. Furthermore, CPCB reports submitted to the National Green Tribunal have shown how none of the 21 existing WTE plants are compliant with the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016,” it said.

Highlighting that the reclassification is highly misleading, Chythenyen D.K. of the Centre for Financial Accountability said that civil society groups are expanding their efforts to resist the rebranding of WTE incinerators as benign facilities. “There is an ongoing postcard campaign against the blue categorisation of WTEs, as it will harm health, increase pollution and climate impacts, and affect the jobs of millions of waste workers,” he said.