Toxic Savar tannery waste smuggled out, sold to animal feed-makers

A racket created over the Savar Tannery Industrial Estate smuggles high-chromium tannery waste, which ends up being used in animal feed.

Thus, tanneries' chromium-containing toxic waste eventually enters the human body through fish and chicken, causing a risk of serious diseases, including cancer.

It is also a violation of High Court directives to stop the use of tannery waste in fish and chicken feed.

According to sources, the racket takes the waste to different areas such as Savar, Keraniganj, Cumilla, Narsingdi, and Sirajganj, where it is melted down. It is then sent to animal feed and mosquito coil factories.

Usually, tannery owners pay around Tk1,500 per vehicle with one to one-and-a-half tonne capacity for transporting solid waste (shaving crusts and cutting) to designated dumping stations.

However, the racket collects the waste from factories free of cost.

It is known that except for a few tanneries in the city, most of the tanneries are handing over their solid waste to the racket to reduce their costs of disposal.

On 22 September, the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (Bscic) seized two vehicles while they were transporting about eight tonnes of waste collected from Pragati Leather. Later, the vehicles were handed over to the local police outpost, and a case was registered.

Basically, tannery waste is being dumped outside the industrial estate in connivance with security personnel and officials, violating the rule of disposing of it in dumping yards.

Supervisors of the Dhaka Tannery Industrial Estate Waste Treatment Plant Company, security personnel of the industrial estate, and pick-up owners and drivers involved in waste transportation, a section of people from the adjacent areas of the industrial estate and Hazaribagh are smuggling the solid waste.

Satyendra Nath Paul, chief engineer of the waste treatment plant company, told The Business Standard, "On 11 September, security in-charge Md Kamal Hussain was sacked, but the activities of the racket could not be stopped."

Calling the matter alarming, Shakawat Ullah, general secretary of the Bangladesh Tanners Association and managing director of Salma Tannery, said, "All have been warned against allowing even a single kg of waste to go outside. Action will be taken against anyone in the association for sending waste outside."

Mahfuzur Rahman Rizwan, executive engineer of the Bscic industrial estate, told TBS, "We have requested the central effluent treatment plant (CETP) management authority to prohibit the entry of large trucks into the dumping station to stop waste smuggling. We are taking necessary measures to close each gate within the specified time."

Md Nayan, a pickup driver involved in waste transportation, told TBS that waste smuggling was stopped for some time after a series of operations by the Rapid Action Battalion in 2019. But recently, the activity resumed with the help of a powerful syndicate.

Spot visit

On 14 October, this correspondent followed a pickup truck loaded with chromium-containing waste from the leather industrial estate.

He saw the pickup going to a factory on the banks of the Dhaleshwari River in Keraniganj.

The factory owner, Nahid, said, 40–50 tonnes of adhesive are produced every month by melting the waste, which is sent to Sirajganj and Chattogram's Sitakunda.

"Shaving crusts from tanneries and leather cuttings from Hazaribagh are collected and melted, then sent to factories for making fodder and mosquito coils," he said.

Ripon, waste transport contractor for Hamko, RK, Pragati, and several others, told TBS that he has three pickups to take the waste to different areas.

A driver named Kamal told TBS, "Ujjal, Parvez, Mannan from Hemayetpur, and another person from Hazaribagh run the syndicate. The car driver of International Tannery, Kamal, a contractor named Noor Alam, and several others are also involved in the syndicate."

Kamal said that the Hemayetpur syndicate manages the people concerned to get the waste out of factories. CETP company supervisors Himel and Al Amin, security guards in charge of various gates, and police have to manage to get the pickups out.

Several hazardous waste melting spots have been found in Savar's Madhumati Model Town and Keraniganj's Hasnabad Balur Char and Konakhola areas, from where hundreds of tonnes of waste are melted and supplied to different parts of the country every month.

Dhaka Tannery Industrial Estate Waste Treatment Plant Company Supervisor (Solid Waste Management) Himel and Supervisor (Electrical) Al Amin denied their involvement in this racket and taking money per vehicle.