The PM 2.5 pollution in Bangladesh has reached disturbing tiers in the course of the pandemic, amid fears that the air pleasant in the neighbouring united states of america is worsening the air pleasant in Bengal.
The degree of PM 2.5, the most poisonous ultrafine particulate, in Bangladesh is nearly seven times the restrict authorised by means of WHO, according to a latest survey carried out by using the Centre for Atmospheric Pollution Studies (CAPS), a unit of Stamford University Bangladesh.
The PM 2.5 pollution degree was once observed to be maximum in Dhaka and neighbouring cities like Gazipur and Narayanganj. The common fee used to be nearly 17 times the WHO limit and greater than four times the Bangladeshi permissible restriction of sixty five micrograms per cubic metre of air.
The find out about used to be conducted between January and July last year — which included the 2d wave of Covid in Bangladesh — when polluting activities such as vehicular motion and construction have been lower than usual.
Kalyan Rurdra, chairman, West Bengal Pollution Control Board, had stated lately that about 21 per cent of Bengal’s PM 2.5 pollution comes from Bangladesh, citing a find out about by way of IIT Delhi.
A key researcher involved with the Bangladesh study, however, stated Bangladesh does now not make a contribution extensively to Bengal’s air pollution.
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are the three most polluted countries in the world when it comes to PM 2.5 pollution. The minuscule particulates can penetrate and resort deep in the respiratory gadget and trigger a bevy of respiratory, cardiac and different diseases, inclusive of fatal cancers.
The study, carried out in all sixty four districts of Bangladesh, found that the average PM 2.5 level in the country between January and July 2021 was once 102.4 microgram, about seven times greater than the WHO-specified safe day restrict of 15 microgram and about 1.6 instances above the Bangladeshi day limit of 65 micrograms.
The pollution degree ought to have been some distance worse in the absence of Covid curbs in Bangladesh at that time. “Out of the sixty four districts studied, Gazipur had the worst average PM 2.5 pollution of 263.45 microgram, whilst Dhaka was the 2d worst with 252.9 microgram, followed with the aid of Narayanganj with 222.45 microgram. All three are located shut to one another,” stated professor Ahmed Kamrujjaman Majumder, the head of environment science at Stamford University and the challenge lead.
At some places, the PM 2.5 level was round five hundred micrograms, greater than 30 times the WHO restrict and seven times the Bangladesh benchmark.
“Constant digging of roads and construction, emissions from about 1200 brick kilns round the cities and air pollution from a few thousand medium and massive industries as properly as unfit cars and burning of garbage, are the foremost motives in the back of the high air air pollution in the top three cities in Bangladesh,” defined Majumder.
“A development-pollution correlation emerges in the study. We observed that the PM 2.5 surge frequently commenced in 2016, round the time when numerous developmental projects, specially ones involving essential construction, started out in Dhaka and different parts of Bangladesh,” stated Majumdar.
The development of a Metro rail system, believed to be one of the primary triggers of particulate pollution, started in Dhaka in 2016.
“The air pollution has spread all over Bangladesh with Dhaka being the central point, main to excessive have an impact on on the uncovered population,” said Shorif Jamil, standard secretary of the Bangladesh Paribesh Andolan.
“There is no doubt that the spate of developmental activities, especially constructing of bodily infrastructure, has contributed to the upward thrust in air air pollution in Dhaka despite quite a few government efforts to contain the spread,” stated Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, an economist and the chairman of the Dhaka School of Economics.
“Our research suggests that neither Bangladesh receives a enormous amount of pollution from India, nor India from Bangladesh,” stated Majumder. According to him, the pollution in Bangladesh is mainly nearby in origin.
Anumita Roy Choudhury, an air air pollution specialist from the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) in India, pointed out that it’s excessive time that regional air-shade ought to be regarded into for tracking and taking action towards air pollution.
