Bangladeshi rivers turn to health hazards.

Research from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology has found that drought and pollution have caused the four major rivers surrounding the capital city of Dhaka to be too oxygen-deprived to support life. Moreover, skin diseases affect most of the boatmen on the Buriganga River, whose pollution has been noted to arise mainly from the industrial discharge of leather tanneries.

Approximately 40,000 metric tons of poisonous sludge from the tanneries are dumped daily, including harmful chemical contaminants such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, chlorine and chromium, and pollutants have been measured at 17 times more than acceptable limits.

We thank the scientists at Bangladesh University for this important study, even as it saddens us to know of the dire conditions facing Dhaka’s human and aquatic life. Let us step together toward wholesome and sustainable lifestyles so that our precious natural resources may be restored.

Concerned for the plight of the Earth’s inhabitants, Supreme Master Ching Hai spoke of the unwanted consequences of mistreating our rivers and oceans during the July 2008 Heart-Touch Tour videoconference in Formosa (Taiwan).

But the fact is that we are responsible. So I suggest that stricter rules must be imposed to protect the sea, the water, which is our life, which is also our protector in terms of balancing our ecosystems and sustaining our planetary equilibrium, and sustaining our life.

Reference: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/4125eaa596023164c9044b9dbefa7ac8.htm http://www.ucd.ie/dipcon/docs/theme08/theme08_12.PDF
http://www.metric-conversions.org/weight/metric-tons-conversion.htm