Pollution of Buriganga River

Despite numerous efforts by the city corporation to reclaim and restore the Buriganga River, the situation remains dire as powerful encroachers continue to thwart these initiatives. 
 
Concrete buildings have been erected in the middle of the river, turning parts of it into isolated islands of encroachment. Although some of these structures were partially demolished during city corporation operations, many remain, and the illegal activities continue unabated. 

The Dhaka South City Corporation, led by the Mayor has made significant efforts to reclaim the Buriganga by installing boundary pillars along the original channel and conducting eviction drives to dismantle illegal structures.
 
His plan includes calling for tenders to build a sustainable and aesthetically pleasing river structure once the basic design work is completed.

They continue their businesses and constructions, claiming legitimacy through historical documents from the British era. This defiance is a significant hurdle for the city authorities, who struggle to enforce the law against powerful and well-connected individuals.

According to official records of the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA), around 350,000 kilograms (350 metric tons) of toxic waste is dumped into rivers every day from about 7,000 industries and other residential areas in greater Dhaka and adjacent areas.

As in other countries, the air in Bangladesh too cleared to a great extent during the coronavirus pandemic. Carbon emissions have dropped by 4 percent. Diversity returned to nature. But the plastic pollution in rivers has been devastating. Around 92 percent of the gloves and masks used as protection against coronavirus, end up in the rivers after use.

According to the World Bank, plastic pollution is the second worst in the world in the rivers Ganges, Padma and Jamuna that flow through India and Bangladesh.

The World Wildlife Fund's report in August stated that every month from April this year, 129 billion masks and 6,600 gloves ended up in the sea, via the rivers. Previously, 800 million tonnes of plastic would be dumped in the rivers and end up in the sea. This kills 1 million sea birds and 1 million fish annually.

The Buriganga still has its oxygen level is still five times below the acceptable level, proving that the leather industry relocation has been a complete waste of money. Similar has been the experience with five more projects, undertaken over the last 19 years.
For example, the government had fenced off the river with concrete railings, most of which have disappeared, and the river encroached upon them. The project to bring in water from the Jamuna to ensure a clean water supply to the Buriganga also did not materialize. And other projects also similarly failed.

Several government decisions have been made to revive the tolerant condition of Buriganga among which the shifting Tanneries from Hazaribagh to the Saver area and subsidies to the toxic industries for establishing an Effluent Treatment Plant(ETP) can be mentioned, but none of these projects have been implemented yet.

The Bangladesh government estimates that about 21,000 cubic meters of untreated industrial sewage are released into the river every day. According to Human Rights Watch, residents in neighboring slums regularly suffer from fevers, skin diseases, respiratory problems, and diarrhea. The dire contrast between what the river once was — a life-giving force — and what it has become caught the attention of Italian-born photojournalist Ugo Borga.

Many development projects have taken on the label of “Save Buriganga” but there is hardly any achievement and river water remains polluted. One side of the coin shows the administration is cleaning the waste, whereas the other side shows the river remains polluted. These contradictory scenes raise the question — of whether the river management system is working or not.

According to the study, there are about 300 types of effluents that are discharged into the river from nine major industrial clusters—Tongi, Hazaribagh, Tajgonj, Taraba, Narayangonj, Savar, Ashulia, Gaziour, and Ghoshal. The river carries about 61 percent industrial and 39 percent domestic waste. The tanneries are known as the biggest polluters of all. There is no data on the exact number of units. However, an estimated 500 tanneries, including 200 large units in Hazaribagh, discharge 4.75 million liters of highly toxic waste into the river. Besides, 95 tonnes of solid and hazardous waste, including trimmings of finished leather, shaving dust, hair, and trimmings from the rawhide are also dumped in the area's open drains.
The only sewage treatment plant for Dhaka at Pagla in Narayangonj, managed by WASA, can treat only 10 percent of the city's wastewater. Orders by the government to vacate or relocate are defied by using political links or bribing.

At the beginning of January, the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) began to clean a 3km stretch of the river. It estimates that 300,000 cubic meters of rubbish need to be removed from the water. Five bulldozers worked to remove a three-meter layer of plastic bags and food scraps from the river bed, and more than a hundred people worked by hand to clear the debris from the banks. The cost of this program, financed by the environment ministry, comes to over 2.5 million euros.

Severe pollution is rendering the rivers around the capital, Dhaka, biologically dead, with specialists warning the situation is beyond rescue.
“The rivers around Dhaka have too little oxygen for the survival of aquatic life,” Umme Kulsum Navera, assistant professor of Water Resource Engineering (WRE) at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, told IRIN. “The water is especially toxic during the dry seasons,” he said.
According to research conducted by the WRE, some invertebrates and small organisms come to life in these rivers when water-flow increases. But in the dry season, these life forms completely disappear in the four major rivers that encircle the city, including the Buriganga, Shitalakhya, Turag, and Balu.

A study was carried out to observe the ecological health hazards of the Buriganga river and their risk to human health. The samples were analyzed to determine water quality and associated environmental health risks, chemical oxygen demand (COD), phosphate (PO4 -3), ammonia, organic matter, nutrients, etc. It also revealed huge environmental health risks and possible ecological disruption of this river.
Finally, the research recommends a sustainable policy framework on how pollution could significantly be reduced by using different appropriate measures.

Illegal structures have sprung up along its banks, narrowing the river and adding to the dirt, while ferries spill oil into its waters. It is now a dying river and the situation will get worse unless steps are taken urgently to reverse the trend.

The River Buriganga, which runs past Dhaka City, is one of the most polluted rivers in Bangladesh. Dhaka City is very densely populated and has become one of the ten Mega Cities by 2000. However, only a small fraction of the total wastewater being generated in the City is treated. Consequently, the number of untreated wastes, both domestic and industrial, is being released into Buriganga and increasing daily. Option runs show that an integrated approach would be required to restore the river water quality of biodegradable pollutants.

A newspaper article pointed out that up to 80 percent of Dhaka's wastewater was untreated. Because Dhaka relies heavily on river transport to transport goods, including food, Buriganga receives especially large amounts of food waste, as unusable or rotting parts of fruits, vegetables, and fish are dumped into the river.