Industrial Pollution

Pollution  is a form of waste and a symptom of inefficiency in production. Environmental pollution is defined as " The unfavorable alteration of our surroundings, wholly or largely as a by product of man's actions, through direct or indirect effects of change in energy patterns, radiations levels, chemical and physical constitution and abundance of organisms". Air pollution means the presence in the outdoor atmosphere of one or more contaminates, such as dust, fumes, gas, mist odour, smoke, or vapour, in quantities, with characteristics, and of durations such as to injurious to human, plant, or animal life or to property.

Modernization and progress have led to air getting more and more polluted over the years. Industries, vehicles, increase in the population, and urbanization are some of the major factors responsible for air pollution. The following industries are among those that emit a great deal of pollutants into the air: thermal power plants, cement, steel, refineries, petro chemicals, and mines.

The surge in energy demand, characterized by India's dependence on coal has manifest itself in major increase  air born pollution. Urban air quality has largely deteriorated on account of growth in industrial activities, transportation needs and energy Production. Industries releases several pollutants into the air through fuel gas emissions.

In Punjab the total number of industries has  increased tremendously over the past 20 years from 43300 small scale units in and 228 large & medium scale units in1980 to 201736 and 620 units respectively in 2002 as shown in graphs .

                                         Source: Economic Survey of Punjab 2002-2003

The Punjab Pollution Control Board has  so far identified 15547 polluting industries under the provision of Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act 1974 and Air (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1981. Out of these 9465 are Red Category Units ( 288 LSUs, 340 MSUs & 8837 SSUs ) and 6082  are Green Category Units ( 2775 SS Moderately Polluting & 3307 SS Marginally Polluting units). These industries have caused serious air, water and land pollution problems in the state. 

Status of Air Polluting Industries of Punjab

                                              APCD : Air Pollution Control Devices, Source: PPCB

Industries like dyeing units, rice saila plants, tyre units, vanaspati ghee units and paper mills are burning rice husk and coal in the boilers for raising  steam for their purposes. This is resulting in generation of a lot of black smoke and unburnt carbon particulate matter. This partially burnt husk gets converted into ash , the disposal of which is again causing serious problems. The other major source of  industrial air pollution are metallurgical units e.g arc furnaces, induction furnaces, rolling mills and small pit furnaces. Arc furnaces and induction furnaces convert scarp/turning into steel by heating and melting with electricity. These industries emit large quantities of metallic particles, dust etc. Rolling mills in the state are either coal fired or oil fired and emit large quantities of suspended particulate matter and obnoxious gases like SO_{2 ,} NO_x, and CO.

Fertilizers producing industry releases toxic gases like sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, acid mist, etc. in addition to dust into the atmosphere. However, such industries in the state have taken suitable measures to minimize some of these pollutants. Thermal plants also contribute substantially towards air pollution, but both the thermal plants of the state have installed electrostatic precipitators to contain emissions. Fly ash disposal from thermal plants is another source of air pollution for which action is being taken like, setting up of the clinker grinding plant in the complex of Ropar thermal plant, wherein flyash shall be used as a filler. Sugar industries use bagasse for raising steam as heat transfer medium. Bagasse fired boilers generate particulate matter in the form of  unburnt carbon.