JOIN USIn an effort to create awareness to adopt ‘green technology’, Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) held a workshop to the dairy farmers here on Tuesday.
Dr Tuppil Venkatesh, Director of the National Referral Centre for Lead Poisoning in India and principal advisor for the Quality Council of India, said there is need to check the quality of packaged milk and milk products which are consumed everyday.
“We need to check for pesticides and heavy metal content in milk, which needs to be certified and labelled on all the milk packets,” he said.
Lead deposits in the body deteriorates the calcium content in a person and leads to various health complications. Anaemia caused among children is mainly due to the lead in the body, he said.
Speaking on the occasion, A S Sadashiva, chairman, KSPCB said it is very important to check the effluents being diverted to lakes and rivers without treating them.
“Letting out untreated waste water is not only contaminating the environment, but is also becoming direct feed for the cattle,” he said.
Dr H Jayaprakash, professor of dairy technology said dairy industry involves processing raw milk into products such as consumer milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, condensed milk, dried milk (milk powder) and ice cream. “Controlling the amount of effluents being let out by a dairy industry is one of the ways for safe disposal of dairy waste,” he said.
There are 22 dairy industries under the Karnataka Milk Federation with milk processing capacity of 3525 KLD and 42 milk chilling centres with chilling capacity of 1505 KLD.
There are 22 dairy industries operating in the private sector in the State.