Bangladesh

Urban areas particularly the big cities including Dhaka have serious pollution problems with respect to solid waste management, growth of slum areas without supply of clean water, and sanitation facilities, with congested living conditions, inadequate drainage system, and untreated industrial waste disposal. Most of these
factors affect the urban poor in terms of general hardship, ill-health and even death. As usual it is the women and the children who are the worst victims. Such appalling conditions also adversely affect labour productivity due to disease and morbidity and thus increases vulnerability of the poor.

Reduction of environmental problems related to urbanization must address improvement in the existing solid waste disposal system in all towns and cities, living conditions of the slums, and drainage congestions. The regulatory framework must be strengthened and implemented strictly with provisions for proper and adequate incentives to entrepreneurs to ensure that all industrial wastes are properly treated before disposal. With respect to waste disposal public/private collaboration is essential, system must be efficient and the Government needs to introduce sanitary landfill for all solid waste disposals and/or arrange for using the waste to produce energy. The disposal of hazardous and medical wastes in urban areas is a major cause of concern for urban life including that of the poor who are engaged in scavenging activities.

Another serious problem in the urban areas is improperly planned land development, whereby low lying lands, canals, and ponds are filled up for constructing residential and commercial buildings. This is causing reduction in the floodwater retention areas, water logging and drainage problems. Construction of roads without appropriate environmental mitigation measures is also adding to these problems. Flood protection activities around urban areas without appropriate environmental mitigation measures are also responsible for water logging.

Policy Recommendations:
To address environmental issues relevant to the conservation of nature it is important to appropriately integrate environmental issues in all policies including macroeconomic policies. The Government needs to initiate studies on the impact of macroeconomic, sectoral, fiscal and trade policies and pricing of resources on the environment. For example if the Government is to remove subsidy from the agriculture sector, then it should do so by first removing subsidy from environmentally damaging chemical-based inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides. Instead, this money may be spent to train the farmers on integrated farming and pest management methods. Not only environmental analysis should take place at the policy level but also environmental considerations need to be included in project design and implementation. It is essential to introduce public hearings for projects with possible major environmental impacts. In this respect it is also essential to make Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) documents on all projects and programmes available in the public domain.

The Government also needs to increase direct expenditure on increasing environmental awareness and undertake environment-related projects and programmes with a view to ensuring biodiversity, preventing land degradation, protecting forests and expanding social forestation, identifying and disseminating alternative cooking fuel and energy etc. In the area of common resources two measures are essential. The Government needs to take initiatives to expand and renew the depleted public commons, improve and systematised access of the poor to the natural commons and introduce community-based participatory natural resource management. In this respect enacting laws and regulatory frameworks and recognizing the rights of the indigenous and rural people to local common property resources are essential. The conservation of nature needs to include the goal
of ensuring sustainable livelihood for the poor.

Combating Pollution
Poverty-pollution linkages are the direct and indirect consequences of pollution, particularly of air and water, generated by public/private industries. These kinds of pollution have a strong human health impact, a major cause of erosion of human productivity and of death in many instances, particularly among the poor and marginalised communities. The combined pressure from the shrinking resource base and worsening living conditions weaken the productive capacity of the poor, make them more marginalised over time, and eventually trap them in what is often referred to as the “vicious circle of poverty.”

Air Pollution:
Air pollution needs to address both the outdoor and indoor sources of pollution. Outdoor pollution has been a major problem in the cities of Bangladesh, especially in Dhaka. Over the past few years, air pollution has been reduced because of the introduction of leadfree gasoline in Bangladesh. But air pollution due to suspended particulate matters (SPM) is 4-8 times higher than the standard. Estimates show that more than 3500 premature births a year.

Recently, increases in the gasoline prices have led to large-scale conversion of vehicles into gas driven. Such an effort has not only led to savings in terms of foreign exchange but also reduced air pollution in Dhaka. However, increase in the natural gas price will slow down the rate of gain and the situation will become worse if the relative price gap between petrol and natural gas is reduced. Besides, all two-stroke engines should be eliminated all over the country. For controlling indoor air pollution use of natural gas, biogas and LPG may be encouraged through various means including policy supports for their lower relative prices as well as more efficient and cost- effective cooking stoves. The Government may consider undertaking a project for giving free LPG gas cylinders to the VGD/VGF cardholders. Government expenditure needs to increase for providing support (credit and subsidy) for the diffusion of less polluting stoves and four-stroke engines.

Biogas digesters integrated with livestock projects supported by micro-credit programmes should be promoted. The “Brick Burning Act and Rules,” needs to be amended and strictly implemented, and at the same time an improved and energy efficient brick kiln should be introduced. With respect to car emission two-stroke auto-rickshaws should be phased out and all vehicles older than 15 years should be banned. Improved mass-transport systems in major cities must be introduced to reduce both traffic congestion and air pollution. To reduce dust pollution, dust control measures should be made mandatory in construction works. An air quality index should be measured and disseminated to the public on a daily basis.

Water Pollution:
Water pollution has two dimensions. One is surface water pollution and the other is ground water pollution. Surface water pollution refers to pollution of flowing waters (river, canal etc), and open water (non-flowing) reservoirs (ponds, haors, baors etc.). Flowing waters are mainly polluted because of the disposal of untreated wastes into the river system from industries and also from cities whereas the non-flowing water pollution is caused by excessive use of pesticides and soil erosion. However, these two kinds of water bodies are related to each other. Water pollution of surface water affects the health of poor people who cannot afford to choose between contaminated and non-contaminated sources. Waterborne diseases are the major cause of suffering for the poor people living in rural and urban areas. This combines with the problem of water supply for bathing in both rural and urban areas (especially for the poor families) as a major health problem for Bangladesh.

 Most of the liquid wastes created by the industries in Dhaka are dumped directly or indirectly into the rivers Buriganga, Balu and Sitalakhya. Estimates show that pollution from tanneries in Hazaribagh is responsible for an increase in the health-related expenditure of people living in the vicinity of the tanneries by, 125 US dollar per capita. In Khulna, industrial areas include Shiromoni, Kalishpur and Rupsha. Some 300 mills and factories located in and around Khulna City currently discharge huge amounts of liquid waste into the river Bhairab. Newsprint Mill, a large number of jute mills, many match factories, textile mills and Bangladesh Cable Shilpa Sangstha—all are causing severe pollution in the Bhairab River. These pollutants are causing serious damage to both freshwater and marine ecosystems of the region including those of the Sundarbans.

Dhaka are attributable to air pollution due to SPM. It has further increased the number of asthma patients in the city. Causes of air pollution are linked with the rise in vehicular traffic as well as increase in population density in the cities (which leads to concentration of vehicles in a smaller zone). Unfortunately, the slum dwellers, who live in open air, are the major victims of this degradation. Indoor air pollution is mainly caused by cooking fuels such as firewood and dried cow dung. Most of the poor families use these as fuel and women and children are the main victims of indoor air pollution. Due to air pollution the number of people suffering from respiratory diseases is
on the rise. Brickfields are an important source of air pollution in the rural areas.

In Chittagong, the main polluters are the pulp and paper, fertilizer and petroleum/refineries industries. Most of the industries are located on the banks of the Karnafuli River and the Kaptai Lake. Similarly, the ship building industry contributes significantly to marine oil pollution. The other source of oil pollution is the ships and mechanised boats all over the country especially those- using the port and the outer anchorage area of Chittagong. Ballast and bilge water from oil tankers and ships anchored in the port should only be emptied at installations where the oil can be separated and recycled. This is mandatory in many countries, but in Chittagong ships directly discharge their waste oil-water mixtures into the Bay of Bengal.

In combating surface water pollution the Government needs to introduce land zoning of industries, strengthen water quality monitoring; enforce the Environment Conservation Act & Rules; introduce waste reception and treatment facilities in ports, and clean-up and rehabilitate hot spot areas in Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna. The Government also needs to ensure reduction of effluent discharges from mechanised vessels in rivers; provide fiscal and other financial incentives for retro-fitting or for reduction of effluents from industries. Further the Government needs to take measures for creating appropriate institutional, technical, human and logistic capacity for identifying, monitoring and implementing remedial measures.

Rural Water and Arsenic Pollution:
Contamination of arsenic in ground water provides a graphic picture of environmental degradation as well as its impact on poor population of Bangladesh. It has been documented by now that the first victims of such pollution are the people with low nutrition (often people with low body weight). Women suffer from arsenic not only in terms of physical illness but also social consequences as they can’t get married and become a burden to their families and their communities.

In a recent survey conducted in 270 villages of Bangladesh, more than 7000 arsenicosis (a type of cancer caused by excess pigmentation on the skin due to presence of arsenic in the body) patients have so far been identified. In another study by the National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), arsenic related diseases (arsenicosis) have been identified in 37 districts. Over 30 million people in Bangladesh are exposed to arsenic concentrations above the Bangladesh drinking water standard of 0.05 mg/l; among them over 27 million or close to 90 percent live in rural areas.

Noise Pollution:
Noise pollution gets less attention in pollution discussion although the noise pollution level in the major urban centres of Bangladesh exceeds its legal standards. Noise pollution is not only disturbing but also has health implications. The number of people suffering from deafness as a consequence of noise pollution is increasing. This is mainly an urban phenomenon caused by vehicular congestion and affects the poor who work outdoors, for example the rickshaw-pullers, street vendors, small shopkeepers etc. Some regulation regarding use of horns, particularly banning hydraulic horns and raising public awareness against the habit of honking can
help in solving this situation to a large extent.

International Aspects of Environment:
There are several major global environmental phenomenon and practices that impinge upon the development processes and prospects of Bangladesh. Bio-diversity losses as well as existing intellectual property rights systems that allow alien rights on indigenous species of plants and life threaten not simply the capacity and the right of the country to use its own environmental resources for betterment of livelihood and living conditions, but if taken to its extreme may jeopardise the very existence of the natural life support system. Similarly, the issue of climate change is a cause of grave concern to Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is vulnerable to consequences of global climate change including sea level rise. She has to take measures against such vulnerabilities to protect the gains of the process of economic development as well as the poor who will be affected most adversely. Similarly, environmental interventions such as the river linking project in India are expected to inflict severe environmental, economic and social sufferings to Bangladesh. The Government and the people therefore needs to be vigilant and continuously participate in global and regional environmental dialogues and negotiations and try to ensure the environmental safety of the country.

Source: Unlocking the Potential: National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction (PRSP)
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh