There are 1,176 industrial units in the country that heavily pollute the environment. The concerned authorities have identified these industrial units and legal procedures have been initiated against them.  At the same time, a division bench of the High Court asked the concerned department to ensure pollution control measures in 903 industrial units that have been identified as polluters. The order was served in July 2001. A long time has passed since these initiatives were taken. However, the scenario of industrial pollution has not improved. Rather, there are more reports in the national dailies on increased industrial pollution. People from all walks of life in different places of the country narrated their sufferings due to industrial pollution. The farmers and the fishermen are suffering the most as wastes and effluents from industrial units are dumped in croplands and water bodies.

The industries are highly concentrated around Dhaka. Many polluting industries, tanneries for example, are located within the city. These industries discharge toxic chemicals like chromium and mercury directly into the river.

The most polluting industrial units listed in 1986 included 298 textile mills, 176 tanneries, 166 pharmaceutical units, 92 jute mills, 57 iron and steel mills, 34 rubberand plastic units, 25pesticide factories, 23 chemical factories, 16 sugar mills, five paper and pulp mills, five fertilizer units, three distilleries and three cement factories.

Latest statistics of DoE put the number of polluting textile mills at 365, tanneries at 198, pharmaceutical units at 149, engineering workshops at 129, chemical and pesticide factories at 118, jute mills at 92, rubber and plastic units at 63, food and sugar at 38, paper and pulp at 10, cement and fertilizer at five each and distilleries at four.

Plastic recycling factories have mushroomed on the southwest of Dhaka, an area called Islambag. Survey shows there to be about 57 units on a lane that is only 220 feet wide, and 68 units on another 300-feet wide
lane. Workers are forced to work in dingy rooms with limited ventilation and lighting facilities. These industrial units use electric-driven machines creating noise, emitting odour and releasing dust in the atmosphere. Most of the units face residential houses. In many cases, owners of the industrial units and the residential houses are the same.

Similar industrial units, processing or manufacturing factories, workshops etc., are in most of the residential
areas of the capital city. The units include printing, garment manufacturing, engineering, moulding, welding, repairing, plastic, chemicals, packaging, used lubricant processing, washing, water bottling and many others. The sizes differ. These units have propped up along with or adjacent to residential houses, shops, shopping centres, schools, play grounds, parks and hospitals. The wastes are dumped along roads, lanes or in the drains; the effluents being drained out into ditches. And the fumes are released in the air. But not all industries pollute the environment by releasing toxic substance.

There are 270 registered tanneries in Bangladesh and 90 percent of these are located at Hazaribag on about 25 hectares of land. Most of these are non or semi-mechanized units and these tanneries use old processing methods. During the peak period about 15,000 labourers work daily in these tanneries. The number goes down to 8,000- 12,000 during lean period. About 100,000 persons are directly or indirectly involved with these tanneries.

About 90 percent of Hazaribag tannery workers die before they reach the age of 50 due to unhygienic working-environment. About 58.10 percent of workers suffer from ulcer, 31.28 percent have skin diseases, 16.76 percent suffer from malnutrition, 11.73 percent have high blood pressure and 10.61 percent suffer from rheumatic fever. This was revealed in a study conducted by the Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD), a Dhaka-based nongovernmental organization. The survey was conducted on the health of 179 tannery workers from six tanneries at Hazaribag in the southwest corner of the capital city. It was found in the survey that 34.63 percent of the surveyed tannery workers occasionally suffer from fever, 22.90 percent from cough and 18.99 percent from jaundice. The tannery workers complained of suffering from dizziness, headache, weakness and eye problems. They also suffer from abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhoea, allergy, burning sensation in the chest, throat, palm and toes, urinary problems and pain in the body, waist, legs, back, throat, neck, shoulder and ankles.

There are about five hundred industrial units in Pallabi and its adjoining areas which included saree, paints, mosquito repellent, candle, foundry, moulding, welding, rubber shoe etc., manufacturing units. The Secretary, Office of the Municipal Ward Commissioner, Ward number 5, provided this information.

Distribution of Major Polluting Industries

 

Life has turned miserable for the residents of Sitakunda area in Chittagong due to industrial pollution. Black fumes, dust etc., from industrial units in Sitakunda have made life difficult. There are more than a hundred industrial units in the area. These include vegetable oil mills, steel re-rolling mills, cement packaging factories, etc. Moreover, there are scores of ship breaking yards. The situation is also bad in the port-city itself. Within the city there are hundreds of industrial plants, big, medium and small in size, including cement-packaging factories, washing plants, aluminium factories, soap factories, poultry farms, steel re-rolling mills, tanneries, fish processing plants etc. These industrial units, without any waste treatment facilities, are polluting the environment. There are more than a hundred industrial units along the river Karnafuli that flows to the Bay of Bengal. Industrial wastes are being dumped into the Karnafuli degrading the water quality and making the aquatic life vulnerable. The situation is similar in Sagarika industrial area and Nasirabad area. The people of different areas including Sitakunda, Nasirabad, Bhatiari, Mariam Bibir Hat, Sabon Ghata mentioned problems including waste, diseases, noise, dust, smoke etc. coming out of the industrial units.

Industries and factories at Tongi near Dhaka regularly dump solid waste and effluent in the nearby River Turag,
polluting the water. Colour of water of the Turag is dark and has a strong odour. The number of factories polluting Turag is at least 20. The industrial units include textile mills, dyeing mills, pharmaceutical plants etc.

Many industrial units are increasingly polluting Narayanganj, the industrial and river-port town near the capital city. People there feel that the condition in and around the town is gradually becoming intolerable. Other than the town, there are industrial units at Fatulla, Panchabatee, Kachpur, Rupashi, Tarabo, Hotabo, Sonargaon, Araihazar, Rupganj and Gopaldee. Moreover, there are industrial units along the Dhaka- Chittagong highway. The industrial units include dyeing/printing factories, edible oil factories, paper and pulp mills, chemical industries, jute mills, textile mills, soap factories etc. Many of the industrial units drain out effluents directly into the river Shitalakkhya. Others drain out effluents into nearby crop fields, irrigation canals and water bodies. Water in the irrigation canals of the DND (Dhaka-Narayanganj-Demra) and the Narayanganj- Narsingdi Agrani Irrigation Projects have become polluted. Solid wastes from the industrial units are dumped into adjacent areas including roadside ditches, drains, and crop fields, even adjacent to residential areas making lives of people horrible and crop cultivation impossible. A chemical industry at Rupganj, according to a press report, discharges its wastes into the surrounding crop fields, damaging crops.

Welding shops, spice grinding mills, Bidi factories, tobacco factory, sugar mills, skin and hide trading houses etc. are polluting the environment in and around Kushtia town. Moreover, there are brick kilns. Smoke, fumes, dust, noise, solid wastes are continuously polluting the surroundings. The industrial units are along the main roads and in the residential areas of the town.

A number of farmers in the Maaijgaon Union at Fenchuganj lost their Boro crop as untreated wastes from the Natural Gas Fertilizer Factory (NGFF) at Fenchuganj damaged the crop. Moreover, farmers failed to cultivate crop in the affected fields. They transplanted paddy seedlings 3-4 times, but the seedlings died. The waste has also affected the water of the nearby Beelna Haor and fishes are being depleted.

Source: Bangladesh National Report:
Progress of implementation of the Habitat Agenda (1996-2001)