India, Oct. 12 -- The main road of Purwameer village is connected to open fields by a narrow path, lined with trees, plants and bushes. As the path ends, the field just ahead appears deep green, almost like moss. "It is all chromium," says Vaibhav Gupta, who owns the land in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur Nagar district. "One night, a company truck came and dumped chromium waste in my fields before fleeing," Gupta tells Down To Earth (DTE).

Gupta does not know where the dumper came from, or which company it belonged to. Nor does he know whether he will be able to remove the waste from his land. But the impacts are emerging. "Water extracted from this ground is starting to change colour," he says.

Several other residents also tell DTE that since...