Poultry farm owners demanded tannery waste to be destroyed at the tanneries in a discussion titled “Tannery Waste in Poultry Feed: Ways to Prevention” at the National Press Club in the capital yesterday.
Organised by Feed Industries Association Bangladesh (Fiab), the participants claimed that a few corrupt traders were using unrefined tannery waste to produce meat and bone meal (MBM), an essential ingredient of poultry feed.
Moshiur Rahman, president of Fiab, said MBM is imported from abroad for feed production in Bangladesh. So there is little chance of mixing tannery waste in the feed. He said the culprits who are making MBM locally by using tannery waste and supplying it to the feed mills must be brought to book. Emdadul Haque, advocate at Bangladesh Supreme Court, said the laws regarding waste management were not incoherent and needed revision to introduce stricter punishment for such crimes.
Narayan Chandra Chanda, state minister for fisheries and animal resources, said a meeting would soon be held at the ministry among tannery owners, poultry farmers and other experts to resolve this issue.
Referring to recent reports in an English daily and on a satellite channel in this regard, the state minister said the ministry would issue a statement after proper investigation on the matter.
Md Aftab Alam, managing director of Impex Marketing Limited, said the report in the English daily stated that the amount of chromium found in every kilogram of chicken to be 4,561mg, which was completely inaccurate.