Two factories, sweet shop fined

Department of Environment (DoE) yesterday fined a textile dyeing company Tk 26 lakh in Kaliakoir of Gazipur for polluting the river Turag with untreated chemical waste.
Meanwhile, a mobile court of Bangladesh Standards and Testing Institution (BSTI) yesterday shut down an ice cream factory and filed a case against its owner for operating without a license and adulterating ice creams.
It also fined a sweetmeat shop Aslam Sweetmeat Tk 20,000 in the capital's Nayanagar for producing sweetmeat without BSTI license.
The dyeing company RS Knit Composite Ltd has been operating without environmental clearance and effluent treatment plant (ETP) for the last seven years releasing chemical waste into the river, said a press release.
Director of DoE Mohammad Munir Chowdhury ordered the factory owner to install an ETP within three months.
In Nayanagar, Sathi Ice-cream Factory was also fined Tk 10,000.
The mobile court found ice creams being made in an unhygienic environment with unsafe water with flavour, colour, barley, and prohibited saccharine. It also found dead cockroaches in a barley sack.