The city traffic police may be satisfied that they are implementing the Supreme Court’s directive on tinted car glasses, but what happens after these sun films are removed is a matter of grave concern.
The city traffic police may be satisfied that they are implementing the Supreme Court’s directive on tinted car glasses, but what happens after these sun films are removed is a matter of grave concern.
With not even a semblance of plan on how these sun films can be disposed of safely, the tinted film removal centre at Indiranagar BDA Complex is seeing a dangerous trend of these toxin-filled films being burnt in open air. According to a Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) official attached to the board’s hazardous waste department, these tinted films contain cancer-causing (carcinogenic) toxins like dioxins and furan which get released in the atmosphere.
With the traffic police intensifying the campaign to remove tinted films from lakhs of cars in the city that violate the prescribed limit of the tint at ten centres located in Bangalore, the coming months is expected to accumulate at least 90 tonnes these films, according to the official.
Neither the KSPCB nor the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) seem to know how to manage this huge waste of dangerous plastic waste through a proper disposal mechanism. So, in their ignorance, the people may go about releasing carcinogens into the atmosphere if they start burning the sun films.
Moreover, if these films are not burnt, plastic will end up clogging drains; that too at a time when the city has begun to experience heavy rains.
According to sun film distributors, each car will have about 150 gm of film. Removing films from at least 6 lakh cars would mean piling up about 90 tonnes.
Let alone knowing how the plastic has to be disposed, no one is even coming to dispose of them, though the traffic police have assured that they would take these films back. Shopkeepers at the Indiranagar BDA Complex say no one has been coming to collect the films. “They have been dumped here after removal. We have started burning them,” said Govindaiyya, an employee at a hotel in the complex.
Even a week after the traffic police began its drive across the city, civic authorities have not even set up a proper collection mechanism. The KSPCB claims it is not their job. “Our duty is to take action against industries,” said a KSPCB official. Plastic is not hazardous waste (although burning of the films is),” he said.
“If plastic is burnt at temperatures between 400-800 degrees, the films release carcinogenic material, such as dioxins and furans, which are harmful,” he said. BV Sathish, Chief Engineer, Environment, BBMP said that there are field officers or local environment officers in each ward. “The traffic police should contact them and ask them to collect the tinted films from the centres that they have set up and they will collect it and dispose them correctly,” he said.
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