Mortally sick Buriganga
Let me start with an observation made by late American President J.F. Kennedy about half a century ago: "Man have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last." All our activities prove that we have chosen the second option, that is, to make it last.
Perhaps the most cruel activities of mankind include damage to nature: air, water & warmth. Emission of excessive gas from thousands of industries makes the earth warmer which now stands as a serious threat to the whole planet and peaceful survival of mankind.
Let us now see what we are doing in our country. The river Buriganga was once a source of clean water, channel of transportation and hub of fishes that used to serve millions of people for hundreds of years. It is now wearing a look of a big drain carrying all types of wastes, industrial or domestic. We have chosen this river along with other rivers of our country for this purpose without caring about the impact of it. Greed made us blind. We established various industries/factories on the banks of this river and all wastes including chemicals are made to pass through it making the water toxic, which is poisonous for the fishes and other aquatic beings. With the emergence of a huge number of brickfields, another problem has been created. Their wastes like burnt ashes of coal, broken bricks all are thrown into the river causing the riverbed to rise and creating navigability problem. It comes from a report that big barges with goods cannot move in the river. One thing we should realise is that we have no right to put the next generation to suffer for our cruel activities. Posterity will not forgive us for the failure to contain this. Let the people concerned stop it right now and establish effluent treatment plants. Navigability of the rivers must be restored through regular dredging. Let us not put our own survival at risk. Let all the rivers get back the original shape and look.
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