"Worries over wastewater", 12 February 2019

Textile industries would be dumping a mind-boggling 20,300 crore litres of untreated wastewater into the country's waterbodies every year from 2021 if the current situation did not improve, said a Buet [Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology] study...

Textile factories use on average 120 litres of water to dye and wash a kg of fabric (about two pairs of jeans) and the effluents are discharged into nearby rivers or wetlands without proper treatment...The untreated effluents could instigate quick changes in the aquatic ecosystems and have high economic impact on fisheries. The warm wastewater might also increase the temperature of the water bodies and affect flora and fauna...By consuming and using polluted water for bathing, washing and for household work, marginal people, especially the children, are becoming prone to various diseases...

The government...made Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) mandatory for the factories...[An expert] said there were over 5,000 ETPs installed in factories and those cover about 70 percent of the textile units. Small factories do not have ETPs...Textile factory owners claimed that they have started to use modern technologies to reduce the use of water to make their plants less expensive to run...

Stringent conditions set by the DoE [Department of Environment] and delays in handing out clearance discourage textile factory owners from setting up ETPs [said the secretary of Bangladesh Textile Mills Association]. [The] additional director general of the DoE, said, “The allegation of delaying the clearance for ETP is not true. We try our best to give the clearance within the quickest possible time but whenever we find any technical problems, delays are naturally caused.”...