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Editorial

Addressing dumping issue

Scientific waste management holds the answer
3 February 2010, 18:00 PM
EDITORIAL
At a recently held meeting of the citizens' right movement, the pro-environment groups, lawmakers, labour leaders and government ministers, they called for engaging the residents of the areas near the river in saving it. Of course, heightened awareness of the people, their continuous vigilance and active involvement undoubtedly constitute an important element of protection to ward off the potential polluters and encroachers. The promise from the government level to cooperate with such popular moves in saving it is also reassuring. We appreciate these sentiments. But unless agents of encroachment and pollution are effectively tackled, no sustainable solution to the problem can be found. For all we know, the encroachers and those who dump waste in the Buriganga river have been continuing with their activities, despite all the moves taken so far by the government and the pro-environment groups to stop them. The encroachers, who are to blame for narrowing of the river and creating obstructive structures in it, apart, the other major cause of its getting filled up is the garbage dumped regularly by the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) and the effluents released by the tanneries of Hajaribagh area and other river-bank industries in particular. We would like to stress that the government needs to put its foot down to stop the major sources like the DCC and the tanneries that unload their rubbish or effluents into the river. Especially, urgent steps would be necessary to relocate the tanneries to a place far away from Dhaka. While plugging the sources that keep depositing fresh loads of pollutants, let's draw the attention to the ongoing dredging operation that is proceeding haltingly. While removing the earth from the riverbed and not quite knowing where to dump it, we are not basically clearing the river as such. Therefore, the task of protecting Buriganga or any other river for that matter from the various agents of pollution as well as cleansing it of the garbage already in it has to be done in such a way that it does not create new problems. That means, the success of the effort to keep the river clean depends crucially on a proper system to manage the wastes being generated day in, day out. So, nothing short of a scientific waste management system can take care of such a Herculean task. It all demands that experts put their heads together to evolve a strategy for saving rivers where all the operational components of river preservation work in coordination under as unified an authority as possible.

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