Shut Savar tanneries down

A parliamentary body yesterday asked the environment directorate to shut down the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate, as the joint management committee (JMC) that runs the estate failed to comply with environmental standards.

The parliamentary standing committee on the environment ministry in a meeting also said the industry will remain shut until it takes steps to treat all the waste generated by tanneries.

The environment directorate in December sent a show-cause notice to the JMC, asking why the industry should not be shut down due to severe environmental pollution.

"In response, they [the JMC] have mentioned various plans [to stop pollution], which the committee found unacceptable," Saber Hossain Chowdhury, a ruling AL MP and chief of the parliamentary standing committee, told The Daily Star.

"As they failed to stop the environmental pollution, we have now asked the monitoring and enforcement wing of the environment directorate to take necessary measures to shut down the tannery industry."

He added the directorate will act in line with the law.

Saber further said it was decided in the meeting that Shahab Uddin, minister of environment, forest, and climate change, will meet with the industries minister in this regard.

The meeting also decided that the estate, which has been running without environmental clearance for a decade, will have to apply for a fresh clearance, but will remain shut until then.

In 2003, the government took the initiative to build the BSCIC Tannery Industrial Estate on 200 acres in Hemayetpur after moving all tanneries from the capital's Hazaribagh in order to prevent pollution and protect the Buriganga.

According to statistics placed before the standing committee, the estate has the capacity to treat around 25,000 cubic metres of liquid waste every day, but the tanners generate around 40,000.

That means 15,000 cubic metres of untreated liquid waste are now dumped into the Dhaleshwari.

The estate also does not have the facility to treat solid waste, including heavy metals and chromium, which is also dumped into the Dhaleshwari, Saber Hossain said, adding that around 1.60 lakh cubic metres of solid waste have been dumped in the river over the past three years.