Green activists in the city on Sunday demanded that the government take legal action against tannery owners if they fail to relocate their tanneries by June, reports UNB.
It will not be possible to introduce the central effluent treatment plant (CETP) of tanneries in Savar by June 2015 due to slow progress of construction wor. The tanneries cannot be relocated from Hazaribagh to Savar by this time anyway, they told a press conference.
Poribesh Bachao Andolon (POBA) organised the press conference at its office after a recent visit to Hazaribagh tannery estate.
According to a Poba report released in March this year, about 21,000 cubic metres of untreated toxic waste is released every day from the Hazaribagh tanneries into the Buriganga river.
Reading out a written statement, Poba executive general secretary Engr Abdus Sobhan said the Hazaribagh tanneries have been polluting the water of the Buriganga, the lifeline of the city, for 65 years.
Aquatic animals have disappeared from the Buriganga as the dissolved oxygen (DO) of its water has reached almost zero level and the polluted water is also neither suitable for household use nor irrigation, he said.
As the tanneries have been polluting Buriganga since 1950, Mr Sobhan said, the country counted an environmental loss worth about Tk 26.1 billion (Tk 2610 crore) in the last 65 years.
He urged the authorities to realise the amount from the tannery owners as environmental compensation. The Environment Conservation Act 1995 allows the realisation of compensation.
Poba chairman Abu Naser Khan, Poba executive members Ifma Hossain and Tofail Ahmed, and its coordinator Atiq Morshed, among others, spoke at the press conference.
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