Alleged Industrial Toxic Waste Claims Another Victim

An 8 year old boy apparently fell prey to the devastating effects of industrial toxic waste dumped in an open area, in the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate in Karachi, Pakistan's business and financial hub. As reported in the daily Dawn, the boy was playing cricket with friends and suffered severe burns due to exposure to the toxic waste. The newspaper further reports that the local police are reluctant to lodge a First Information Report (FIR) which is the first step towards further legal action in the matter. Ironically, this case echoes a similar incident about 2 years ago, in the same area, resulting in the death of a boy and injuries to 20 others.

Meanwhile, residents of Hyderabad city, Pakistan's sixth largest city, have been protesting about the contamination in their drinking water, including pollution from untreated industrial effluents dumped in the drinking water source by various factories.

Clearly, these events point to both gross and blatant disregard for environmental sustainability as well as to the apathy of the regulators to a situation that needs to be dealt with urgency and resolve in equal measure. To be fair to the business community, strict international environmental standards as well as embracing of CSR principles have led some export-oriented industrial sectors to adopt more efficient and cleaner production mechanisms, but these efforts have been sporadic and with government support tending to be inadequate in its scope and slow in its execution, the problem of industrial pollution is largely unresolved.

Just recently, the Pakistan Tanners Association, reiterated its demand for solid waste disposal sites. The tanneries, as you may recall, have been amongst the worst offenders vis a vis industrial pollution and have been under severe community and buyer-led pressure to clean up their act. Some success has been achieved in this respect, notably under the Kasur Tannery Pollution Control Project, but clearly a lot still needs to be done.

Will the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency exercise its powers in this latest instance of industrial pollution impacting local communities, or will inaction again overwhelm responsibility?