GreenSteps Chronicles
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GreenSteps Chronicles
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aBangladesh, called as the land of rivers, has developed its capital, Dhaka, on the bank of the river flowing from the Ganges named Buriganga. During the Mughal times, this river has not only helped Dhaka in its civilization but allowed it to flourish by connecting its trade and business to various parts of the country. Since the origin of Dhaka city, Buriganga being a small yet important river has contributed to its heritage, culture and livelihood. From then on, Buriganga has been a blessing playing a crucial role in the capital’s development.
Statistics say, 150,000 people, on average use the Sadarghat launch terminal and a large number of tannery and leather industries grew around the mother river. Sadly, this blissful beauty of the country is being abused by the industrial development for years. This is the sheer result of unplanned urbanization and unsupervised industrialization which has led to killing the Buriganga. Broadly speaking, the degradation has been caused, firstly, due to the chemical fertilizers, pesticides or insecticides applied on crops and vegetation which are washed away by rain, depositing on the river bed, commonly known to be a process named soil erosion; secondly, the effluent gases emitted from tannery industries raise up in the atmosphere and then when “black” clouds gather up in the sky, they cannot hold much longer and pour down on the vegetation as acid rain and, thirdly, the black sewage boils down to this mother river making it black in color making it unusable for daily use or any other purpose. Many papers have been written on the pollution caused in this river titled as “River bleeding black”. Buriganga, due to its current hazardous state is called as the septic reservoir of diseases and disasters. Sadarghat is the popular point of trade and communication in the location. People from southern and eastern areas come over to place by launch or ships, since most of them are illiterate, they throw bottles, papers, nut peels and other harmful things into the river making it dirty and unusable for livestock. It would be partial to say only illiterate people spoil the river. Buriganga is polluted by both the poor and the rich. The poor damage the environment just to survive without knowing its devastating effects on earth and their children. But the rich pollute environment for their financial gains. They grab land and pollute river water for their personal benefit without caring for the earth and the future generation. Biologically, experts say, all the oxygen in the water has been eaten up by the pollutants, so expecting live in water is out of the question; they call the river to be “dead”. In other words, the ecological system is hampered which is, indirect, reason for global warming and many natural calamities occurring in the world. One of the reasons why we are dealing with the black river is due to the unplanned urbanization which has clogged many mouths of the canals passing to different endings thus resulting the sewage to drop in the open ending towards the river. About 200 tanneries, most of them located at Hazaribagh, pump about 21,000 cubic metres of hazardous waste, out of which all of them dump into the Buriganga River. In addition to this, the Tejgaon industrial area offloads about 60 thousand cubic metres of polluted liquid waste into the Buriganga every day. For many years, the Dhaka city corporation used to dump the everyday wastage collected from homes and dump it in the riverbank which used to gradually flow away with water; this wastage includes loads of non-biodegradable substances which are solely responsible for the dwindling existence of aquatic life. This river has been abused not only with water pollution but air pollution, soil pollution, thermal pollution and visual pollution. Experts have identified few industrial areas in and around the capital city out of which majority of them lack sewage disposal planning and system, so they suffer from water pollution. A World Bank study said four major rivers near Dhaka -- the river Buriganga, river Shitalakhya, river Turag and river Balu -- receive 1.5 million cubic metres of waste water from 7,000 industrial units in surrounding areas and another 0.5 million cubic metres from other sources every day while nearly 4.0 million people directly suffer the consequence of poor water quality of the river system caused by untreated textile industry waste alone. Besides, Dhaka city discharges about 4,500 tonnes of solid waste every day, of which maximum 30 per cent are disposed at designated dumpsites, making the water unusable for humans and livestock. Nearly 4.0 million people of the city are exposed to the consequences of water pollution every day. During the dry season between October and April the river becomes totally stagnant with its upstream drying up and cutting off its link with the river Jamuna. During the seven-month long stagnancy of the river, billions of gallons of toxic wastes from the city industries, mainly tanneries, accumulate in its water, turning the entire 54 kilometers stretch of the river into a septic tank. Buriganga has been a mother to the capital providing it with all the necessary resources for its development and gradually getting eroded in nature. What I personally feel about the erosion of this river is the sole reason for such disaster is irresponsible human activity. We have reached in such a point in time where we should stand up and stop dumping pollution into the Buriganga and take seriously the project of cleaning it up. The Buriganga is on the verge of extinction. It is high time we moved forward to save it, because its survival is tied with our own.
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