Environmental Pollution: JS orders DoE to take steps for the closure of Savar tannery.

Today, the parliamentary standing committee for the environment ministry asked the monitoring wing of Department of Environment (DoE), to take the necessary steps to close down the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate due to the failure of its joint managing committee to comply with environmental standards.

At its meeting, it drafted the directive. The committee also decided that the tannery industry would remain closed until it took measures to treat all forms of waste generated there.

Today, the parliamentary body expressed dissatisfaction as well and rejected the response of the joint management committee to the DoE’s December 2012 show cause notice in this regard.

“In their reply they (the joint managing committee) mentioned several plans [to stop environment pollution]After leaving the meeting, Saber Hossain, chief of the parliamentary-standing committee, told The Daily Star that the committee considered this unacceptable.

They also proved that the Savar tanninry industry was polluting the environment, stated Saber Hossain (a ruling Awami league lawmaker).

Sources at the meeting suggested that water and electricity connections might be taken from the tanninry industry.

The chief of the committee also stated that it was decided at the meeting that Shahab Uddin, the Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, will meet with the industries minister to discuss closing down the tannery estate.

The meeting determined that the estate, located on the outskirts capital, will need to apply to a fresh environment clearance. But before that, it will have shut down and will not be permitted to operate until it has a fresh clearance.

Saber Hossain, citing statistics from the Department of Environment (DoE), stated that the estate has dumped approximately 1.60 lakh cubic meters of waste into the river in the last three years.

The environment ministry accepted the watchdog’s recommendation that the tannery industrial park be closed down immediately on November 30th, as it had been operating for 10 years without environmental clearance and has no facilities to treat any liquid waste.

The most alarming fact is that the estate doesn’t have any facility for treating solid wastes, including heavy metals or chromium.

On August 23, the parliamentary body took effect. Recommendation: Shut down the estateDue to widespread pollution of local environment.

According to statistics presented to the standing committee, the estate can treat approximately 25,000 cubic meters of liquid refuse per day, while the tanners create around 40,000 cubic metres of liquid trash each day.

This means that 15,000 cubic meters of liquid waste are being dumped in the Dhaleshwari stream every day, without any treatment. This is causing severe pollution.

After moving all tanneries out of the capital’s Hazaribagh, the government decided to create the BSCIC Tannery Industrial Estate (200 acres) in Hemayetpur in 2003. This was done to prevent pollution and protect the Buriganga river.

According to sources at the meeting, there are about 160 tanneries located in the leather industrial park.

After being moved from Hazaribagh in 2002, the new industrial area was able to accommodate tanneries as well as backward and forward linkage industries that are related to leather goods.