Incomplete Savar tannery park pollute environment

The authorities failed to complete the Tannery Industrial Park at Savar even over two years after the tanneries were shifted there from Hazaribagh in the capital, adversely affecting leather exports and causing fresh pollutions around the new industrial site.

 The tannery park’s under-construction central effluent treatment plant now overflows while there is no solid waste management process in place even though the industries ministry has been working to implement the Tk 1078.71 crore tannery industrial park project for 16 long years, said tanners.

Consequently, the park releases both liquid and solid wastes into the adjacent Dhaleshwari River undoing the objective of the tannery relocation for building an environment-friendly leather park, green activists alleged.

Several tanners have said that no renowned buyers purchase leather from them for the pollutions, eventually leading to the drastic fall of rawhide prices after the immediate past Eid-ul-Azha thereby forcing many to dump rawhides.

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology professor and also the consultation team leader for the tannery project Delwar Hossain said, ‘The effluent treatment capacity of the park’s CETP was estimated to be 25,000 cubic metres daily while the tanneries there produce as high as 38,000 cubic metres in the peak season though only 123 of the 154 tanneries have started production partially.’

Besides, the tanneries produce 80 to 100 tonnes of solid wastes daily during the off-peak time while the wastes exceed 200 tonnes during the peak season.

The planned CETP was not completed even after at least eight deadlines were missed.

Many equipment of the CETP are yet to be set up for it to be fully operational, said CETP project officials.

The Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation is responsible for implementing the relocation of the heavy tannery industry from Dhaka’s Hazaribagh to Savar following protracted criticism that it was polluting the River Buriganga.

The BUET consultant said that they had advised the government to immediately build another CETP to tackle the situation which would be more acute in a short time.

The project director, Jitendra Nath Paul, said that they now instructed the tanneries to minimise the use of water during the tanning process to reduce overflow of the liquid waste.

He noted that the tanners were using excessive water, which was sometimes three times the standard.

Only 30 tonnes of water were required for processing each tonne of rawhide.

He also said that effluent treatment quality would improve after chemicals and equipment imported from China would be used. 

‘But the imported goods are lying at the port for more than two months as the customs authorities are not releasing them on different pretexts including one that they won’t be used in the CETP,’ he said.

Officials said that they had failed to convince the custom officials that all the chemicals and machines would be used for the CETP.

Tanners alleged that due to the pollution from the tannery park most of the reputable buyers suspended leather purchase from Bangladesh, further intensifying the crisis.

As a result, the price of a cow hide plummeted from Tk 2,000 in 2014 to Tk 400 this year and that of a goat skin from Tk 200 to Tk 20 over the same period.

Although, the government set the price of cow hide at Tk 45-50 a square foot in Dhaka and Tk 35-40 a square foot outside Dhaka while the price of castrated goat skin at Tk 18-20 a square foot in the capital and at Tk 13-15 a square foot elsewhere but the market prices were way lower than these.    

Protesting such low prices, Islamic charities that received donations of hides and skins as well as businessmen in Dhaka, Chattogram and other districts threw away thousands of hides and skins.

Leather is the country’s second largest export industry earning $ 1.01 billion foreign currency last year and employing more than 30,000 people.

According to statistics, some 80 per cent rawhides are collected after Eid-ul-Azha and most of them are exported to European and American countries.

‘We are installing water meters in factories to monitor the excessive use of water to tackle the present situation but in the long run another CETP is a must,  Jitendra Nath told New Age.

The government has allocated Tk 477.46 crore for the CETP and the solid waste management.

Construction of them started in 2014 and was scheduled to be completed within 18 months.

But the CETP was not yet commissioned while nothing was done so far for solid waste management.

Tannery project officials said that the tannery park project was unrealistic and it was not based on international practice.

BUET experts said that they were now upgrading the park according to the requirements set by the Leather Working Group.

LWG is a platform comprising brands, manufacturers, suppliers, NGOs and end users to develop and maintain a protocol that assesses the environmental compliance and performance capabilities of leather manufacturers and promotes sustainable and appropriate environmental business practices within the leather industry.

In April 2017, after the High Court’s orders the government cut off utilities to the tanneries at Hazaribagh and forced them to start production at Savar claiming that the tannery park there was ready though the tanners opposed.

Bangladesh Tanners Association chairman Shaheen Ahmed complained that the government forced them to relocate before readying the park, foiling the objective to process leather at an eco-friendly park.

Delwar said that the BUET advised the BSCIC to manage solid wastes at three separate dumping yards considering the amount of such wastes to be produced at the park.

He said that tanners were also responsible for pollutions in many cases as only 62 of the factories were discharging effluent and chrome in separate pipelines while others were not hampering the treatment of effluents.

He also put emphasis on training the tannery workers to discharge separate wastes in separate pipelines.

New Age, while visiting the tannery park recently, found that solid wastes were being thrown on roads and into a pond situated on the southern part of the park creating serious troubles for the dwellers of the area.

For bad odours from the wastes, they said, people find it very difficult to cross the area.

They alleged that after the tannery industry was relocated there they were suffering from skin diseases and respiratory complications.

Besides, corrugated sheets of houses were decaying fast for excessive presence of sodium in the air, coming from the park.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net