Hazardous Waste Disposal and Handling: the Framework Reviewed

In one line

There is no single hazardous waste Act in India. There is one parent Act, one set of rules under it, four neighbouring rule sets, three liability statutes and a tribunal, and the weakness is not in the drafting but in the enforcement.

This is the chapter for the question the University has printed twice: "Briefly review legal framework for Hazardous wastes disposal and handling" and "Present legislations on hazardous wastes." It gathers what the previous chapters proved and arranges it as an answer.

The framework in one page

The parent Act. The Environment (Protection) Act 1986. Section 3 gives the Central Government the power to take all such measures as it deems necessary; section 6 the power to make rules, including rules under clause (d) of sub-section (2) for the handling of hazardous substances; section 8 the requirement that a person handling a hazardous substance comply with the procedural safeguards; section 9 the duty to prevent, mitigate and intimate when an accidental discharge occurs; and sections 14A to 15F the penalty regime as substituted from 1 April 2024. Every rule in this chapter is made under sections 6, 8 and 25 of that Act.

The rules on waste. The Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules 2016, which replaced the Rules of 2008 and, before them, of 1989. Sixty-four rules. Authorisation, storage, packaging, labelling, transport, the manifest, treatment, storage and disposal facilities, import and export, illegal traffic, liability and appeal.

The rules on chemicals in use. The Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemicals Rules 1989 for a chemical in the plant, and the Chemical Accidents (Emergency Planning, Preparedness and Response) Rules 1996 for the four crisis groups that respond when it escapes.

The neighbouring streams. Plastic, electronic, battery, bio-medical, solid and construction waste, each with its own rules, each defined partly by what the others already cover.

The compensation statutes. The Public Liability Insurance Act 1991 for immediate relief without fault, the Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act 1985 for a single catastrophe, and sections 15 and 17 of the National Green Tribunal Act 2010 for relief, compensation and restitution generally.

The workplace. Sections 83 to 89 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020, which on 21 November 2025 replaced Chapter IVA of the Factories Act 1948, sections 41A to 41H, for a hazardous process inside the factory gate, with the workers' right to warn in section 89, formerly section 41H.

The product. The Insecticides Act 1968 for a pesticide, which is a hazardous substance regulated before it becomes waste rather than after.

The forum. The National Green Tribunal, with the appeal from an adjudicating officer under section 15D of the Act of 1986 and the original jurisdiction under sections 14, 15 and 16 of its own Act.