{"id":31922,"date":"2025-04-11T09:03:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T03:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=31922"},"modified":"2025-04-16T17:48:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T12:18:34","slug":"blue-washing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/blue-washing\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Washing"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Blue Washing Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has recently introduced a new category of industries called the \u2018Blue Category\u2019, which falls under Essential Environmental Services (EES).<\/p>\n<h2>What is Blue Washing?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\u2018Blue Washing\u2019 refers to the practice of portraying polluting industries as environmentally friendly by categorising them under less polluting or cleaner industry labels.<\/li>\n<li>This term is now used to describe the reclassification of highly polluting Waste-to-Energy (WTE) incineration industries by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) into the new &#8216;Blue Category&#8217;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Blue Category<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>\u2018Blue Category\u2019<\/strong> is introduced as part of a subset of EES activities like <strong>composting, biogas plants, sewage treatment<\/strong>, and <strong>material recovery facilities<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Waste-to-Energy (WTE) incineration<\/strong>, previously under the <strong>\u2018Red Category\u2019<\/strong> with a <strong>PI of 97.6<\/strong>, is now <strong>reclassified as a \u2018Blue Category\u2019<\/strong> industry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>What is WTE Incineration?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>WTE incineration burns mixed municipal solid waste (MSW)<\/strong> to produce <strong>heat and electricity<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It generates energy through <strong>turbine-driven steam<\/strong>, similar to coal plants, but emits <strong>more CO\u2082<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About Pollution Index (PI)<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) <\/strong>introduced a<strong> Pollution Index (PI<\/strong>) to categorise industries based on pollution levels.<\/li>\n<li>PI is calculated on the basis of <strong>emissions <\/strong>(air pollutants),<strong> effluents <\/strong>(water pollutants),<strong> hazardous waste, <\/strong>and<strong> resource consumption.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>PIranges from<strong> 0 to 100, <\/strong>with industries classified as:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>White Category (0\u201320)<\/strong>: Least polluting<\/li>\n<li><strong>Green Category (21\u201340)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Orange Category (41\u201359)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Red Category (60\u2013100)<\/strong>: Most polluting<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Blue Washing FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1. <\/strong>What is blue washing?<br \/>\n<strong>Ans.<\/strong> A deceptive practice where companies overstate their commitment to ocean conservation or ethical water use for brand image.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2. <\/strong>How does it differ from greenwashing?<br \/>\n<strong>Ans.<\/strong> Focuses specifically on water-related sustainability claims, often linked to SDG 14 (Life Below Water).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q3. <\/strong>Give an example of blue washing.<br \/>\n<strong>Ans.<\/strong> A 2022 case where a beverage firm advertised \u201cplastic-neutral\u201d products while remaining a top ocean plastic polluter.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/waste\/blue-washing-new-categorisation-by-cpcb-promotes-highly-polluting-incineration-industry?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=related-stories\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DTE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018Blue Washing\u2019 is when polluting industries mislead by branding themselves as eco-friendly, masking their true environmental impact under cleaner labels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":31923,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-31922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}