Effluent treatment plants
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Industries in Bangladesh do seriously need to comply with the regulation that they must set up effluent treatment plants (ETPs) for treating waste matters created during production process. It is also important to ensure that the relatively safer treated waste products are discharged afterwards into water bodies, drains or the soil. These are absolute requirements for reversing the worsening environmental conditions in the country. Unregulated discharge of the industrial effluents is contaminating waters of rivers and aquatic life in them and similarly spoiling underground water aquifers from seepage through soil.
Specially, the rivers that flow through and past Dhaka city are in extremely burdened conditions from the care-free discharge of all forms of untreated effluents in them. The very degraded water quality of the affected parts of such rivers has, time and again, been highlighted by the media. The urgency of restoring the water quality of these rivers is dictated by the fact that surface waters from the rivers are being widely used for supplying in the city for household uses. But frequent reports are being published in the press about the poor quality of the water supplied by the DWASA (Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority). The water, supplied by the DWASA, is found to be smelly and dark in appearance in many parts of the city and is, thus, unfit for drinking. On their part, the DWASA authorities pointed to the unchecked pollution of the rivers from untreated discharge of effluents-- both human excrements and industrial wastes -- that make the tasks of purification extremely difficult these days.
Thus, the compulsory establishment of the ETPs by the industries cannot wait for long. However, there are also other issues to be taken into consideration. One such issue -- and of course, of consequence -- would be avoidance of too drastic steps on the plea of helping the environment. The ETPs must be acquired by all offending industries and government's pressure must be unrelenting to that end. But the merit of any step would be questionable if it leads to a crackdown or closure of industries from failing to comply with the regulation for ETP establishment. The government in recent months has reportedly been breathing down the necks of some offenders pushing them into great distresses. Whether such 'severe' pressures are reasonable need to be assessed by the government.
A more flexible policy response of the government to the matter would be both economically pragmatic and sensible than any drastic moves. Industries suddenly forced into closing down for non-compliance will be a very counterproductive development from the turning-off of their contribution to the national economy and creation of large redundancies for workers. The benefits of stoppage of discharge of effluents may be offset by the higher negative costs of lost production and jobs. Therefore, the government has to adopt a policy that meets both the medium- and longer-term needs of getting the ETPs established without causing industries to shut down in the process. The essential planks of such a policy should be one of putting pressures on varying degrees for the sake of fairplay.
There is no denying that for a good number of industries, establishment of ETPs would be costly. Expenditures on them range between Taka 10 million and Tk 100 million. Most of the industries could go on polluting so freely as relevant authorities hardly did anything about it. Asking these industries to build ETPs all on a sudden can impose additional financial burden on them when the government itself has not been serious enough to alert them in time about the imperatives for being careful about the serious adverse effects of related pollution. Therefore, the government has a responsibility to them and should consider mobilising a special fund from which the industries can borrow on easier terms for the establishment of ETPs.
Specially, the rivers that flow through and past Dhaka city are in extremely burdened conditions from the care-free discharge of all forms of untreated effluents in them. The very degraded water quality of the affected parts of such rivers has, time and again, been highlighted by the media. The urgency of restoring the water quality of these rivers is dictated by the fact that surface waters from the rivers are being widely used for supplying in the city for household uses. But frequent reports are being published in the press about the poor quality of the water supplied by the DWASA (Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority). The water, supplied by the DWASA, is found to be smelly and dark in appearance in many parts of the city and is, thus, unfit for drinking. On their part, the DWASA authorities pointed to the unchecked pollution of the rivers from untreated discharge of effluents-- both human excrements and industrial wastes -- that make the tasks of purification extremely difficult these days.
Thus, the compulsory establishment of the ETPs by the industries cannot wait for long. However, there are also other issues to be taken into consideration. One such issue -- and of course, of consequence -- would be avoidance of too drastic steps on the plea of helping the environment. The ETPs must be acquired by all offending industries and government's pressure must be unrelenting to that end. But the merit of any step would be questionable if it leads to a crackdown or closure of industries from failing to comply with the regulation for ETP establishment. The government in recent months has reportedly been breathing down the necks of some offenders pushing them into great distresses. Whether such 'severe' pressures are reasonable need to be assessed by the government.
A more flexible policy response of the government to the matter would be both economically pragmatic and sensible than any drastic moves. Industries suddenly forced into closing down for non-compliance will be a very counterproductive development from the turning-off of their contribution to the national economy and creation of large redundancies for workers. The benefits of stoppage of discharge of effluents may be offset by the higher negative costs of lost production and jobs. Therefore, the government has to adopt a policy that meets both the medium- and longer-term needs of getting the ETPs established without causing industries to shut down in the process. The essential planks of such a policy should be one of putting pressures on varying degrees for the sake of fairplay.
There is no denying that for a good number of industries, establishment of ETPs would be costly. Expenditures on them range between Taka 10 million and Tk 100 million. Most of the industries could go on polluting so freely as relevant authorities hardly did anything about it. Asking these industries to build ETPs all on a sudden can impose additional financial burden on them when the government itself has not been serious enough to alert them in time about the imperatives for being careful about the serious adverse effects of related pollution. Therefore, the government has a responsibility to them and should consider mobilising a special fund from which the industries can borrow on easier terms for the establishment of ETPs.