Stop factories from using tannery waste

The Supreme Court yesterday stood by its earlier order upholding a High Court verdict that asked the government to stop the operation of poultry and fish feed factories that use tannery waste from the capital's Hazaribagh.

It rejected a petition filed by Golam Saruar, proprietor of Shoeb Enterprise that produces poultry feed.

He filed the petition asking the SC to restore his earlier appeal challenging the HC verdict.

The Appellate Division in December last year dismissed the appeal, since no lawyer was present for Golam Saruar.

Yesterday, a four-member bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha heard the petition seeking restoration of the appeal.

Saruar's lawyer Zahirul Islam told the court he was sorry that no lawyer had been present before it on behalf of his client the other day.

However, the court rejected the petition.

Responding to a writ petition filed by Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, the HC in July 2011 directed the authorities to stop the operation of poultry and fish feed factories within a month and to prepare guidelines in two months to monitor and check the use of tannery waste in producing the feed.

On behalf of the rights body, lawyer Manzill Murshid told the SC yesterday that the operation of such factories had already been stopped, and so Saruar's petition was not acceptable.

The rights body filed the petition in July 2010 following a report published in The Daily Star with title “Toxic poultry feed poses health risk”.

The use of tannery waste in poultry and fish feed poses serious health risk as the hazardous waste has the possibility of directly entering the food chain.

Experts say consumption of tannery waste through fish and poultry might cause liver and kidney diseases, even cancer.

An inquiry by The Daily Star found around 100 small traders in and around Hazaribagh supplying raw tannery waste to some 20 feed factories across the country.

A study in 2007 by Dhaka University and Bangladesh Council for Scientific and Industrial Research found chromium in eggs and poultry meat higher than the tolerable level. The samples were collected from Dhaka, Narsingdi, Kishoreganj, Mymensingh, Tangail, Gazipur, Narayanganj and Munshiganj.

Source: thedailystar