Indo-U.S. workshop begins

Priyanka Mary Francis, Deputy Commissioner, on Saturday stressed the need for a change in attitude towards waste management at the grassroots level.

She was speaking at the inaugural function of the three-day Indo-U.S. workshop and training course on ‘Principles, Practice and Regulations of Hazardous Materials Management’ conducted by the Departments of Biotechnology, Chemical and Civil Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), here.

Ms. Francis spoke about the launch of the Swachh Udupi Mission back in August 2017 and gave a brief on the efforts being made by the district administration for a ‘Clean and Healthy Udupi.’ She also told the audience about the launch of Solid and Liquid Resource Management (SLRM) project that aims to turn garbage into useful products.

She hoped that the deliberations at the workshop would be put to practice, and assured support by the district administration for any pilot scale project connected with waste management.

H. Vinod Bhat, Vice-Chancellor, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), highlighted the problem of waste generation at a high pace. He sought for an all-encompassing “technical, demographic and regulatory solution” for alleviating the risks of hazardous wastes.

Rajasekar B. Puranik, senior environmental officer, Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, cited various examples of industries in this belt that were working towards recycling their respective hazardous wastes.