Bangladesh court threatens to close polluting factories and tanneries

Bangladesh's High Court has ruled that all tanneries and factories nationwide must install effluent treatment plants by next year or face closure.

The court has given the industries until 30 June 2010 to install treatment plants, which the court said were needed to combat severe river pollution.

The ruling enforces a law passed in 1995 that had been widely ignored by industrial sites in the country. Currently, there are only 187 effluent treatment plants in Bangladesh, despite the law requiring 567 different sites to use the technology.

Green groups also claim that even many of those effluent treatment systems that have been installed are not being utilised because of operational costs.

The court also ordered that all 195 tanneries in the Hazaribagh area of central Dhaka must relocate to an industrial estate in the suburb of Savar – 24km northwest of the capital – by the end of February next year.

According to a 2007 World Bank study, the four major rivers near the capital of Dhaka receive 1.5m cubic metres of waste water daily from 7,000 factories in surrounding areas.

Tanneries have been cited as one of the country's most polluting industries by the Bangladesh Department of Environment, which claims tannery sites discharge nearly 22,000 cubic meters of untreated and highly toxic liquid waste daily into the capital's water system a day.

An additional 100 tonnes of solid waste, including trimmings of finished leather, shaving dusts, hair, animal flesh and raw hide trimmings are dumped into Dhaka’s main river – the Buriganga – and on nearby lands, contaminating soil and water.

Environmentalists say the Buriganga River, once known as "the lifeline of Dhaka", is the worst affected. It used to provide enough fish to feed the capital's 6m residents, but is now so polluted that it is considered biologically dead as it is incapable of supporting any life forms.