Many tannery factories continue to pollute adjacent rivers seriously risking life in the river waters and damaging surrounding environment.
In move to prevent such environmental pollution most of the tanneries were shifted from Dhaka city to Savar. Unfortunately, now the Dhaleswari river of Savar is dying due to heavy pollution by some tanneries.
Not only the Dhaleswari, waste of tanneries taints many rivers in other parts of the country. Environmental pollution occurs also for discharging chromium-mixed water in rainwater-filled drains that move to rivers.
Against the backdrop of polluting river for tannery waste, the High Court has ordered to stop all operations of the SAF tannery located on the banks of the Bhairab River at Abhaynagar upazila in Jashore. The higher court issued the order for having environmental clearance of the tannery.
The HC bench of Justice Zafar Ahmed and Justice Md. Akhtaruzzaman asked the authorities concerned to stop all operations of the SAF tannery until the environmental clearance is received.
The HC bench issued the order on Thursday (November 10) following a writ petition by the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers’ Association (BELA).
Advocate Minhajul Haque Chowdhury stood for BELA in the higher court, while Advocate S Hasanul Banna assisted him.
Advocate Hasanul Banna told media that the court has ordered to stop all activities of SAF tannery located on the banks of Bhairab river at Taltala of Nawapara of Abhaynagar upazila of Jashore district until the environmental clearance is received.
At the same time, the court ordered the chairman of National River Conservation Commission (NRCC), Director General of the Department of Environment (DoE), Director (Monitoring and Enforcement) of DoE, the DoE Directorate (Khulna Division) and Deputy Director, The DoE Directorate (Jashore District Office) to regularly monitor the activities of environmental polluting organization.
The SAF tannery located on the banks of Bhairab River has been operating since 1980 without the mandatory environmental clearance, ETP and solid waste management. The waste of this institution is directly dumped in the river.
BEL filed a public interest writ petition in the High Court for continuing the pollution operation in violation of the law despite being warned and fined several times.
Environment Secretary, Industries Secretary, Water Resources Secretary, Chairman of National River Conservation Commission, Director General of DoE, Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Jashore, Superintendent of Police (SP) of Jashore and others were made defendants in the writ petition.
Meanwhile, discharge from the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate taints the Dhaleshwari river. The tannery industry generates 40,000 cubic meters of waste per day, with a waste management capacity of 25,000 cubic meters. However, there is no solid waste management system here.
Against this backdrop, the government last month decided to completely shut down a total of 19 tanneries in Savar’s tannery industrial city that have not applied for environmental clearance. The decision was made in the meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
Although the park has been created to stop pollution at Hazaribagh in the capital, it is now polluting a new area on the outskirt of Dhaka as it is yet to be fully equipped for the purpose five years after coming into operations.
Its Central Effluent Treatment Plant became overloaded before all the tanneries started operations in 2017. So far 139 tanneries are now in operation in the park.
