Staff Reporter :
The Department of Environment yesterday destroyed seven factories at the city’s Hazaribagh for using toxic tannery-waste in poultry and fish feeds.
A DoE team led by executive magistrate Selim Reza, in a surprise raid found that workers of the factories filling sacks with dried up tannery waste. Later, the team destroyed the factories and seized 28 cookers used to produce poultry feeds.
They also found the factories polluting soil and air and labourers working at severe health risk.
None of the factories has environmental clearances, said an official.
Experts say consumption of tannery waste through fish and poultry can cause liver and kidney diseases, even cancer.
Sources said, in and around Hazaribagh some 100 small traders using tannery waste as ingredients for poultry and fish feeds and supplying those to some 20 factories across the country.
They said in the country around 176 tonnes of solid waste is produced a day at 270 tanneries, 90 percent of which are located in Hazaribagh.
The practice of using tannery waste for fish and poultry feed started around 10 years ago, as the prices of imported protein for feed had gone up over the years.
