High level open burning of garbage is turning Taj Mahal yellow: Study

New Delhi: Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world, is on the verge of losing its pristine white shine due to the dense smog created by open burning of city garbage, a new study revealed.

The study, jointly conducted by the researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology University of Minnesota and Duke University in the US with IIT Kanpur, has discovered that open burning of garbage causes 10 times more pollutant deposits on Taj Mahal than the recently banned burning of cow dung cakes.

Both these sources of pollution not only pose serious health hazards to the tourists but also cause at least 713 premature deaths in the city every year, according to The Times of India. The report shows that the impact of municipal solid waste (MSW) burning on the Taj Mahal is 10 times more than cow dung cake burning as far as particulate matter (PM2.5) is concerned.

Open MSW burning and cow dung cake burning led to estimated PM2.5 impacts of 4.3 and 0.34 microgram per cubic meter (annually average) on the monument, and up to 33 and 3.3 microgram per cubic meter in the city, with the highest levels in Agra, with the highest levels in low economic status (SES) neighborhoods.