HYDERABAD, INDIA, September 2, 2002: National Green Corps, comprising school children, along with the Andra Pradesh Pollution Control Board have urged people to make Ganesha icons only with clay and not from other materials such as plaster of Paris. They also asked people to not to install Ganesha icons painted with colors nor to immerse the Ganesha icons after the festivities in infiltration tanks, rivers, lakes and seas. In a statement, the NGC and the APPCB said that the colors used to paint the icons contain heavy metals like mercury, lead, cadmium and arsenic. “They pollute our water bodies, so please do not use colored icons of Lord Ganesha,” they said. Lead paint, long banned in Western countries, is still used in India.
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