Sagar Biswas :
Most of the industries and factories in the country do not have Effluent Treatment Plant, though it is obligatory to install the plant for proper treatment of wastewater. As a result, the huge amount of wastewater regularly goes to the nearby rivers or water bodies posing danger to public health.
This year, the World Water Day was observed on March 22 with the theme ‘why wastewater’, alongwith focusing attention on the importance of fresh water and advocating for sustainable management of such a resource.
Experts believe that wastewater is valuable resource to help achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6 target, which aims to halve the proportion of untreated wastewater and increase water recycling and safe use. But in Bangladesh, the government’s initiatives are almost invisible in this regard.
The residents of city’s Sadarghat regularly face the toxic stench wafting through the area, which is almost suffocating. The people working in the area often become lightheaded and dizzy. The odor rises from the polluted river – the Buriganga – where nearby plants and factories dump their wastewater. The water is thick and the colour is pitch-black.
Several hundred factories, from garments to textile and dyeing plants to tanneries regularly unload their wastewater into the Buriganga river. It is not only the condition of Buriganga, but the scenario is also the same at each and every river of the country.
In fact, the country is now facing several water related problems both in the urban and rural region where water borne diseases are the common phenomenon among the people. There is widespread allegation that insufficiency in wastewater treatment facility is making effluent water harmful for the environment and public health.
“If we want to achieve SDG, then we have to give importance on wastewater treatment. Actually, only two percent of wastewater is being treated in Bangladesh though the authorities claim that its quantity is around 20 percent,” Mujibur Rahman, Professor of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said.
Explaining the situation, the Professor said, “Out of seven billion world population, only 2.4 billion people have excess to sewerage facility, and most of these are in the developed world. In contrary, the sewerage system in Bangladesh is very poor.”
In Bangladesh, the water and the sanitation are currently facing challenge due to high population density. There have been some changes in awareness for sanitation and hygiene in the cities, but in the rural areas it is still insignificant.
Against this backdrop, Managing Director of Dhaka WASA [Water Supply & Sewerage Authority] Taksim Ahmed has said that they have taken a challenge to bring the entire capital city under the pipeline sewerage system.
“To resolve the water problem permanently, the WASA will implement the master plan within 2025 by arranging sewerage, drainage and water system in a pre-planned way,” he said recently.
But terming the country’s water management policy as old one; the experts have opined that it is almost impossible to complete the projects in line with the master plan in next eight years. Besides, they have also laid emphasis on coordination among the stakeholders to tackle the situation.
According to a recent study of Department of Environment, the water of Buriganga river always remains “unusable”. For safe use of river water, it is needed to maintain quantity of dissolved oxygen [an important parameter to measure when assessing water quality] above five in each milliliter of water.
But the DoE study said that the quantity of dissolved oxygen in all the four rivers surrounding capital city Dhaka — Buriganga, Turag, Balu and Shitlakhya — in less than one. Not only that, the study also found existence of heavy metallic substances, including mercury, led, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide, in the river water.
And for this reason, the WASA has recently claimed that water of these rivers is nearly untreatable.
Most of the industries and factories in the country do not have Effluent Treatment Plant, though it is obligatory to install the plant for proper treatment of wastewater. As a result, the huge amount of wastewater regularly goes to the nearby rivers or water bodies posing danger to public health.
This year, the World Water Day was observed on March 22 with the theme ‘why wastewater’, alongwith focusing attention on the importance of fresh water and advocating for sustainable management of such a resource.
Experts believe that wastewater is valuable resource to help achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6 target, which aims to halve the proportion of untreated wastewater and increase water recycling and safe use. But in Bangladesh, the government’s initiatives are almost invisible in this regard.
The residents of city’s Sadarghat regularly face the toxic stench wafting through the area, which is almost suffocating. The people working in the area often become lightheaded and dizzy. The odor rises from the polluted river – the Buriganga – where nearby plants and factories dump their wastewater. The water is thick and the colour is pitch-black.
Several hundred factories, from garments to textile and dyeing plants to tanneries regularly unload their wastewater into the Buriganga river. It is not only the condition of Buriganga, but the scenario is also the same at each and every river of the country.
In fact, the country is now facing several water related problems both in the urban and rural region where water borne diseases are the common phenomenon among the people. There is widespread allegation that insufficiency in wastewater treatment facility is making effluent water harmful for the environment and public health.
“If we want to achieve SDG, then we have to give importance on wastewater treatment. Actually, only two percent of wastewater is being treated in Bangladesh though the authorities claim that its quantity is around 20 percent,” Mujibur Rahman, Professor of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said.
Explaining the situation, the Professor said, “Out of seven billion world population, only 2.4 billion people have excess to sewerage facility, and most of these are in the developed world. In contrary, the sewerage system in Bangladesh is very poor.”
In Bangladesh, the water and the sanitation are currently facing challenge due to high population density. There have been some changes in awareness for sanitation and hygiene in the cities, but in the rural areas it is still insignificant.
Against this backdrop, Managing Director of Dhaka WASA [Water Supply & Sewerage Authority] Taksim Ahmed has said that they have taken a challenge to bring the entire capital city under the pipeline sewerage system.
“To resolve the water problem permanently, the WASA will implement the master plan within 2025 by arranging sewerage, drainage and water system in a pre-planned way,” he said recently.
But terming the country’s water management policy as old one; the experts have opined that it is almost impossible to complete the projects in line with the master plan in next eight years. Besides, they have also laid emphasis on coordination among the stakeholders to tackle the situation.
According to a recent study of Department of Environment, the water of Buriganga river always remains “unusable”. For safe use of river water, it is needed to maintain quantity of dissolved oxygen [an important parameter to measure when assessing water quality] above five in each milliliter of water.
But the DoE study said that the quantity of dissolved oxygen in all the four rivers surrounding capital city Dhaka — Buriganga, Turag, Balu and Shitlakhya — in less than one. Not only that, the study also found existence of heavy metallic substances, including mercury, led, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide, in the river water.
And for this reason, the WASA has recently claimed that water of these rivers is nearly untreatable.
