All factories must have the mandatory ETPs

If the country’s 80 per cent of the 10,000 industrial factories does not have an operational Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) to treat the liquid waste they produce, the impact of this on the environment could be easily imaginable. One impact of this is that many fish species have already gone extinct from the country’s water bodies including rivers. It is disastrous to say the least. Bangladesh is currently going through a huge environmental predicament because of the government policymakers’ absolute negligence to the environment.

But how do these factories that do not have ETP clear their wastes that are extremely harmful to the nature that we live in? In most cases, they use drains to discharge the waste to canals and rivers. All rivers of the country that flow through the cities or have cities near them are the victims of this mindless pollution simply because authorities, the Department of Environment to be precise, have conspicuously failed to force the industrial factories to have an operational ETP.

Recently, it was reported in a daily that Mokka Washing Industries Private Limited at Nasirabad in Chattogram City was polluting the River Karnaphuli. The tragic stories of four rivers of the capital Dhaka such as the Buriganga, Shitalakhya, Turag and Balu are examples of this senseless negligence. One cannot stand beside these rivers because of foul odour that comes from the waters of these rivers. The odour itself is very unhealthy.

There are many factories that have installed ETPs but do not reportedly use them because of the operational cost involved. And what was the fate of the plan, taken last year, of installing internet protocol (IP) cameras, which transmit and receive data over the internet, in the ETP area of the factories for online monitoring of the ETP operation?

According to the DoE data, of the 10,000 factories, only 2,312 factories have an ETP of which only 500 have installed IP cameras despite the directives of the DoE. When the matters stand thus, it is reasonable to think that there must be an unholy nexus between the factories and the government monitoring agencies. If this is not true then the only answer is that the relevant staff of the DoE is just sitting idle and taking their pay without delivering their duty in this regard.