The New Nation - Internet Edition

At a recent seminar in the capital city it was stressed that all the local textile industries should set up their own waste processing units called 'effluent treatment plants’ (ETP) with a view to preventing pollution of the environment. Speaking at the seminar, the environment adviser of the interim government refused to soften his government’s stand against those local textile industries which are not setting up waste treatment units suggesting the textile mill owners should set up ETPs as a linkage industry and earn money by treating the waste of textile units which cannot set up their own ETPs at present or do not have space enough for such plants. The entrepreneurs have to make their manufacturing facilities socially responsible and environment-friendly and for that they would have to set up the effluent treatment plants as early as possible as the seminar on 'Compressive Effluent Management for the Knitting Industry in Bangladesh’ was told.

The surprising aspect was that a section of entrepreneurs tried to find an excuse that constant pressure for setting up of ETPs would disrupt their business and the whole approach was that they should be allowed to take more and more time even if that costs pollution of environment. The adviser, however, rejected all these excuses and refused to soften the government’s stand in this regard asking them to go for ETP as soon as possible for protecting environment from pollution. In fact, the ETP problem is not big but some of the entrepreneurs are making it bigger. If we are to think of future, developing environment-friendly manufacturing facilities will ultimately yield sustainable benefits for industries as well as the whole society. There is suggestion like that if textile dyeing unit promise to buy waste treatment services, private investors could set up ETPs in different textile clusters, and that could be a promising linkage and service industry.

The government has been warning textile mill owners who pollute environment by dumping the hazardous wastes on the nearby agricultural lands and water bodies that strong action will be taken against them. The government investigators found that most of the textile units, did not have the ETPs and the few who have ETPs save money by not operating them. An environment specialist was of the view that a comprehensive survey should be carried out by the industry and the government on the existing situation of the ETPs and the scale of pollution the industry has created to the environment. Both the agricultural land and the water have been affected by the hazardous wastes discharged by them. The government should come forward to facilitate the installation of ETPs by providing technical guidance and also loans if required with a view to protecting the environment from pollution. Effective steps also should be taken to recover the polluted land and water bodies so that there can be no further damage to nature or environment.