No action as 80% of industrial factories run without waste treatment facility

Mokka Washing Industries Private Limited at Nasirabad in Chattogram City is one of the 10,000 industrial factories in the country that should have an operational Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) to treat liquid waste, according to the Department of Environment (DoE).

But visiting the factory of Mokka Washing recently, the officials of the DoE found that though there is an ETP in the factory, it had been shut down. 

Instead of using ETP, the factory authorities are using a bypass drain to discharge the liquid waste, which flows into various canals of the city and eventually ends up in the River Karnaphuli.

The DoE collected sample waste from the factory and found after testing that the waste produced by Mokka is very harmful to the environment in all the parameters.

This is not a unique case and a majority of factories such as Mokka are running without an active EPT which is required by law, according to officials of DoE.

In some cases, despite having ETP, unscrupulous industrial owners are running their factories without using the facility for years to save costs.

To solve this issue, in 2022, based on a confidential report of the Divisional Commissioners, the Cabinet Division proposed to install internet protocol (IP) cameras, which transmit and receive data over the internet, in the ETP area of the factories for online monitoring of the ETP operation, which was approved by the prime minister. 

The Cabinet Division asked the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to monitor the factories in collaboration with the Local Government Division, the Ministry of Industries, the Ministry of Labor and Employment, and the Ministry of Textiles and Jute.

In view of this request, on 26 April 2022, the DoE instructed the entrepreneurs of industrial establishments to install IP cameras in the EPT rooms by 30 June of that year. A letter signed by the Director (Environmental Clearance) of the DoE Masud Iqbal Md Shameem was sent to factories.

But even after a year of that initiative, around 80% of factories have not installed cameras and the DoE has not taken any measures in this regard so far.

Why is the DoE not taking effective actions?

According to the DoE data, the number of factories in the country that are required to have ETP is about 10,000. But ETP has been installed in 2,312 factories till June 2022. Of the ETP factories, only 500 have installed IP cameras despite the directives of the DoE. 

There is a plan to set up a central monitoring system for ETP surveillance through IP cameras, but the DoE has not been able to develop any such system over the last year.

When asked, DoE Director Masud Iqbal told The Business Standard, "So far, no such central system has been developed for monitoring. District and metropolitan officials have been given IP addresses by their respective factories so that they can see if ETPs are active from their own computers."

"Also, it is being considered to create an app centrally. Once this is done, the officers will not have to check the IP camera repeatedly to know if the ETP is active or not. Rather, if the ETP is down in a factory, the app will automatically send a message to the concerned official. But developing the app will take some more time," Masud Iqbal said. 

The officials at different levels of the DoE do not have a clear action plan regarding the installation of IP cameras in ETP rooms and their monitoring. 

Officials at the district and metropolitan levels of the DoE said it is not possible to monitor the footage of such a large number of IP cameras with a small manpower. 

Meanwhile, industrial owners are taking advantage of this inaction of the DoE.

According to the DoE Chattogram office, the number of industrial factories required to have ETP in the city is 289. Out of these, 269 factories have ETP but only 27 of these factories have installed IP cameras in the last year. 

Similarly, in the Chattogram district, 50 industrial factories have ETP but only five have installed IP cameras.

Md Ferdous Anwar, deputy director of the DoE Chattogram office, told TBS, "We have the IP addresses of the factories that have installed IP cameras. However, there is no such management in our office for ETP monitoring with IP cameras. Perhaps efforts are underway to monitor the factories centrally."

When asked why factories are not installing the cameras, he said, "Many of the factory owners are having difficulty in procuring the IP cameras with the exact resolution that we have instructed them to install. In many cases, they are saying they cannot buy the camera now as import has been limited by the government."

Mia Mahmudul Hoque, deputy director of the DoE Chattogram Office, said, "So far, most of the factories that have installed IP cameras in ETP areas are large organisations. Smaller ones often do not operate ETPs to save costs. We are being strict about this. When companies apply for the renewal of ETP licenses, they are forced to install cameras."

Managing Director of Eastern Refinery Ltd Md Lokman told TBS that they have installed 47 IP cameras for ETP monitoring and there are plans to install 100 more cameras in future.

He, however, feels that even after a year of the decision, the ETP monitoring by IP cameras is still not being done properly and he blamed the lack of management of the implementing organisation for that.

Syeda Rizwana Hasan, chief executive of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (Bela), said, "Monitoring only ETP machines is not enough, but ETP electricity metres and factory electricity metres should be brought under surveillance to properly monitor the liquid waste treatment process."