Use available technology to address the arsenic problem
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Sayma Huda
Arsenic in the underground water of the country is still a formidable problem. Some 50 million people in 61 out of the 64 districts of the country are reportedly exposed to the arsenic threat in varying degrees. Out of these 50 million, some 60 per cent of them are still not getting the benefits of mitigation activities as these programmes are working very slowly.
Indeed, this is distressing in view of the fact that a Bangladeshi inventor had discovered a very inexpensive technology to completely filter out arsenic from water lifted up by tubewells . This invention was internationally recognised and other countries with arsenic problems are showing an interest in it. Even before this discovery, other nearly as inexpensive technologies have been around for some time. Therefore, there can be no excuse for not making the people of the affected areas in Bangladesh widely aware of using such technologies .
Funds have otherwise been flowing into the country to mitigate arsenic-related distresses and these need to be well spent both to raise awareness about the health threat from arsenic and, more significantly, enable more and more people in the affected areas to acquire the relatively simple devices to filter arsenic from their drinking water. This is an activity where the government's own agencies and the non-government organisation (NGOs) should take on bigger programmes to bring a much larger number of people living under the threat under some form of protection.
Consumption over long periods of time of drinking water with arsenic above the permissible level can lead to arsenicosis, a chronic illness that produce in humans skin disorders, gangrene and cancer of the kidneys and bladders. The latest research have established that humans become susceptible to such diseases even from eating foods grown with disproportionately arsenic laden water.
Thus, people in our rural areas need to be initiated and habituated to drinking surface waters of ponds and other water bodies which are free from arsenic after boiling the same. Rainwater harvesting may also be considered for the same purpose. The inexpensive technologies should be popularised extensively throughout the country.
As for growing crops, plans need to be implemented on a large scale to use less water drawn from the underground for irrigation purposes, to apply more surface waters for irrigation and the harvesting of rainwater . But all of these activities also need to be backed up with regular publicity in the mass media about their beneficial effects.
Arsenic in the underground water of the country is still a formidable problem. Some 50 million people in 61 out of the 64 districts of the country are reportedly exposed to the arsenic threat in varying degrees. Out of these 50 million, some 60 per cent of them are still not getting the benefits of mitigation activities as these programmes are working very slowly.
Indeed, this is distressing in view of the fact that a Bangladeshi inventor had discovered a very inexpensive technology to completely filter out arsenic from water lifted up by tubewells . This invention was internationally recognised and other countries with arsenic problems are showing an interest in it. Even before this discovery, other nearly as inexpensive technologies have been around for some time. Therefore, there can be no excuse for not making the people of the affected areas in Bangladesh widely aware of using such technologies .
Funds have otherwise been flowing into the country to mitigate arsenic-related distresses and these need to be well spent both to raise awareness about the health threat from arsenic and, more significantly, enable more and more people in the affected areas to acquire the relatively simple devices to filter arsenic from their drinking water. This is an activity where the government's own agencies and the non-government organisation (NGOs) should take on bigger programmes to bring a much larger number of people living under the threat under some form of protection.
Consumption over long periods of time of drinking water with arsenic above the permissible level can lead to arsenicosis, a chronic illness that produce in humans skin disorders, gangrene and cancer of the kidneys and bladders. The latest research have established that humans become susceptible to such diseases even from eating foods grown with disproportionately arsenic laden water.
Thus, people in our rural areas need to be initiated and habituated to drinking surface waters of ponds and other water bodies which are free from arsenic after boiling the same. Rainwater harvesting may also be considered for the same purpose. The inexpensive technologies should be popularised extensively throughout the country.
As for growing crops, plans need to be implemented on a large scale to use less water drawn from the underground for irrigation purposes, to apply more surface waters for irrigation and the harvesting of rainwater . But all of these activities also need to be backed up with regular publicity in the mass media about their beneficial effects.