THE RIVER BURIGANGA

Rivers of the World, largest and most polluted bodies of water

 

 


SURFACE POLLUTION - In busy rivers like this, there is generally not much pollution visible.

 

 

The Buriganga River (Buŗigônga - "Old Ganges") flows past the southwest outskirts of Dhaka city, the capital of Bangladesh. Its average depth is 7.6 metres (25 ft) and its maximum depth is 18 metres (58 ft).

 

This river is economically very important to Dhaka. Launches and country boats provide connections to other parts of Bangladesh, a largely riverine country. When the Mughals made Dhaka their capital in 1610, the banks of the Buriganga were already a prime location for trade. The river was also the city's main source of drinking water.

Today, the Buriganga river is afflicted by the noisome problem of pollution. The chemical waste of mills and factories, household waste, medical waste, sewage, dead animals, plastics, and oil are some of the Buriganga's pollutants. The city of Dhaka discharges about 4,500 tons of solid waste every day and most of it is released into the Buriganga. According to the Department of the Environment (DoE), 22,000 litres (5,800 US gal) of toxic waste are released into the river by the tanneries every day. Experts identified nine industrial areas in and around the capital city as the primary sources of river pollution: Tongi, Tejgaon, Hazaribagh, Tarabo, Narayanganj, Savar, Gazipur, Dhaka Export Processing Zone and Ghorashal. Most of the industrial units of these areas have no sewage treatment or effluent treatment plants (ETPs) of their own.

More than 60,000 cubic metres (2,100,000 cu ft) of toxic waste, including textile dying, printing, washing and pharmaceuticals, are released into the main water bodies of Dhaka every day. According to the Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), about 12,000 cubic metres (420,000 cu ft) of untreated waste are released into the lake from Tejgaon, Badda and Mohakhali industrial areas every day. The waste mostly comes from garment washing and dyeing plants. Textile industries annually discharge as much as 56 million tonnes of waste and 0.5 million tonnes of sludge. Sewage is also released into the Buriganga. A newspaper article from 2004 indicated that up to 80% of Dhaka's sewage was untreated. Because of Dhaka's heavy reliance on river transport for goods, including food, the Buriganga receives especially high amounts of food waste since unusable or rotting portions of fruits, vegetables, and fish are thrown into the river.

Nearly 4.0 million people of the city are exposed to the consequences of water pollution every day.

Previously, a group of environmentalists attempted to form a river patrolling team to save the Buriganga and other rivers from extreme pollution. The group was concerned about the contamination of the rivers around the capital and demanded immediate action. The government has been criticized for its inability or unwillingness to stop the industrial units of the city from releasing untreated waste into the water.

 

 

THE (GENERALLY ACCEPTED) TWELVE MOST POLLUTED RIVERS IN THE WORLD

 

Let us not forget that in the fight against ocean pollution, it is the pollution from rivers that is discharged into the Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans that is potentially the most harmful is left unchecked. Hence, the most wanted list of river authorities who need to think hard on cleaning up their act as the starting point for cleaner oceans:

 

1. Citarum River, Indonesia - The Citarum River is known as the most polluted river in the world and is located in West Java, Indonesia.

 

2. Ganges River, India - The Ganges River is considered the most sacred river in India by the Hindus. It is the third largest river in the world and it is believed that its water can cleanse the sins of people.

 

3. Mantanza-Riachuelo River, Argentina - The river is located in the Buenos Aires Province of central-eastern Argentina and is more than 60 kms long. The river is also known as Slaughterhouse River.

 

4. Buriganga River, Bangladesh - Buriganga is also known as the Old Ganges in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries around the world and is right now suffering from every kind of pollution that exists.

 

5. Yamuna River, India - The river is crystal clear and blue near its source in the Himalayas but as the river flows down the water becomes extremely polluted with sewage, industrial garbage, agricultural run- off etc.

 

6. Jordan River, Israel - The Jordan River originates from the Anti-Lebanon and Mount Hermon mountain ranges covers a distance of 223 km. The river has severely deteriorated especially the lower reaches of Jordan are full of untreated sewage and contaminated water flowing from agricultural lands.

 

7. Yellow River, China - The Yellow River of China is drying up fast due to expansion of factories, cities, agricultural farms etc. and whatever water is left is contaminated badly. The water is so toxic that it is not fit for agriculture.

 

8. Marilao River, Philippines - The Marilao River flows through the Bulacan Province Philippines and empties in Manila Bay. The main sources for polluting this river are tanneries, textile factories, piggeries, gold refineries and municipal dumps.

 

9. Sarno River, Italy - The Sarno River is one of the most polluted rivers in Europe. It flows in southern Italy near Pompeii and Naples. In recent years many cases of liver cancer have been reported which shows the level of degradation of the river.

 

10. Mississippi River, USA - The Mississippi River in USA is also known as the ‘Big Muddy’ as the water of this river is usually brown because of pollution. Crude oil spills reported in the river which has made the water toxic and is poisonous to the marine life. The river is a sewer for farmers and industrialists making it one of the most polluted rivers in the world.

 

11. Cuyahoga River, USA - The Cuyahoga River flows through Cleveland, Ohio and is known for having caught fire many times. The river is completely choked with oil, sludge, sewage and debris.

 

12. Pasig River, Philippines - The Pasig river is a 27 km long river in Philippines which passes from west of Laguna de Bay and moves downstream to east of Manila Bay. This river is termed biologically dead.

 

PROPOSED SEAVAX RIVER POLLUTION (PART) SOLUTION

 

The only significant advantage to using SeaVax as a platform to develop a river cleaning solution, is that the vessel is powered by over 80kW of energy harvested from nature. This is important, because if the craft can be converted to clean effluent and metals from river water (not on the agenda at the moment, but we are willing to undertake studies if properly underpinned) whatever assistance that may provide is sustainable in energy terms, in a circular economy.

 

The most obvious hurdle in defining any kind of assistance to the beleaguered nations in this case is: How do you treat staggering volumes of water divided into hundreds of locations. It looks as though the problem is insurmountable. But is it?

 

1. The first thing to consider is to deploy several ocean dustcarts to deal with surface litter that would otherwise find its way into the open ocean and feed the 5 main Gyres. This is not only doable but a must.

 

2. The second is to decide whether to deploy SeaVax oil spill boats to rivers that are known to be oil toxic.

 

3. The third is to undertake a feasibility study as to the possibility of modifying SeaVax units to deal with industrial waste and sewage at selected points of discharge. The issue here is likely to be volume where sedimentation tanks would need to be voluminous and SeaVax is a mobile solution. If deployed at known discharge points, that may negate the volume issue to some extent.

 

 

 

PROOF OF CONCEPT MILL & SINGLE STAGE FILTRATION - In this photograph you can see the experimental motorised mill head and hydro-cyclonic filtration chambers of the SeaVax test boat under construction. The full size version of this is 14 metres (44 feet) wide and includes two more stages of filtration that we cannot show here due to patent laws prohibiting publication before grant. This unit showed us what was possible and what to develop next. Nobody else anywhere in the world is developing such a system.

 

 

ACIDIFICATION - ADRIATIC - ARCTIC - ATLANTIC - BALTIC - BAY BENGAL - BERING - CARIBBEAN - CORAL - EAST CHINA

ENGLISH CH - GOC - GULF GUINEA - GULF MEXICO - INDIAN - IOC - IRC - MEDITERRANEAN - NORTH SEA - PACIFIC - PERSIAN GULF

  RED SEA - SEA JAPAN - STH CHINA - PLASTIC - PLANKTON - PLASTIC OCEANS - SEA LEVEL RISE - UNCLOS - UNEP - WOC - WWF

 

  

AMAZON - BURIGANGA - CITARUM - CONGO - CUYAHOGA - GANGES - IRTYSH - JORDAN  - LENA - MANTANZA-RIACHUELO

MARILAO - MEKONG - MISSISSIPPI - NIGER - NILE - PARANA - PASIG - SARNO - THAMES - YANGTZE - YAMUNA - YELLOW

 

 

LINKS & REFERENCE

 

Wikipedia Bay_of_Bengal

Wikipedia Indian_Oil_Corporation

IB Times India million litres untreated sewage polluting holy river ganga says report

Inspired Economist 2015/01/14 India uses zero liquid discharge technology for Ganges river

Haaretz Israel Ganga pollution news science

Central Pollution Control Board of India

listaka top 12 most polluted rivers in the world

Hubpages politics what are the 10 Most Polluted Rivers in the World

Listdose top 10 polluted rivers world

Austro Indonesian Arts Program blog most polluted river in the world Citarum

The Guardian environment 2014 January 2 plastic waste river Thames marine life report

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/02/plastic-waste-thames-marine-life-report

http://www.austroindonesianartsprogram.org/blog/most-polluted-river-world-citarum-river-indonesia

http://hubpages.com/politics/What-Are-the-10-Most-Polluted-Rivers-in-the-World

http://listdose.com/top-10-polluted-rivers-world/

http://listaka.com/top-12-most-polluted-rivers-in-the-world/

http://www.cpcb.nic.in/water.php

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/science/1.666846

http://inspiredeconomist.com/2015/01/14/india-uses-zld-ganges-river/

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/india-million-litres-untreated-sewage-polluting-holy-river-ganga-says-report-1491715

http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/China-India-rivalry-grows-over-infrastructure-projects

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Bengal

 

 

 

 

 

 

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