Photo : Collected
Today is World Environment Day. The theme of this year's Environment Day is ‘Solutions to plastic pollution’. Although we chant this slogan on Environment Day, the actual situation is completely reverse.
The country's indiscriminate use of plastic and felling of trees and extinction of water bodies pose a serious threat to the environment. Although there is a lot of discussion in the public meetings, no effective initiative is visible to stop them. Ignoring all the suggestions of the sensible and educated citizens, the use of plastic in the country is constantly increasing and deforestation is also going on parallelly.
In our country, used plastic is burnt, or dumped on the streets and rivers. When plastics are burned, hazardous chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, dioxins, etc. are released.
These emissions cause respiratory diseases and weaken the human immune system and can even cause cancer in the human body. According to a 2019 study, around 4,000 tons of plastic waste is burnt every day in the country, which is causing massive air pollution. According to World Bank data in 2017, only 2 percent of the plastic used in the country is recycled. Another study has shown that 1.46 lakh people died prematurely in the country in 2019 due to various forms of air pollution including plastic burning. According to a 2019 data, about 45 crore tons of plastic waste is generated every year around the world, 10 percent of this waste is incinerated. Due to this, 8.5 crore tons of carbon dioxide has been added to the atmosphere which scientists think is responsible for 11 percent of our temperature rise. So proper and modern plastic waste management is very important for public health.
The point is, development of a country does not only mean economic and infrastructure development, but to build a civilized country so that all the people of the country can live properly. An ideal city should have 10 to 12 percent wetlands and 15 percent greenery.
The presence of vegetation and wetlands is essential to keep the environment healthy. But we are continuously destroying vegetation and wetlands. Despite the agitation, tree felling on the Satmasjid road of the capital could not be stopped recently.
A study by BIP said that the green area of Dhaka has decreased most in the last 8 years.
The process of filling a century-old pond is going on in Gandaria of Old Dhaka. On the other hand, part of Hatirjheel is being filled as part of government development project and Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) has filled a waterbody at Ramchandrapur for research on potato. These incidents indicates that we are not serious about this. It is very disappointing that public and private construction projects are undertaken by destroying water bodies and greenery. We want effective policies to be formulated and strictly enforced to prevent environmental pollution. Thus we can leave a clean and beautiful planet for the next generation.
TDM/SD
