With the season of winter approaching soon, it stands to reason that the quality of air in our cities is going to become a lot worse than usual, especially in our capital Dhaka, which has already reclaimed its spot at the top of the list of cities with the worst air quality.
Year after year, the urgent need to clear up our air is ignored by the authorities despite promises made to that end. Indeed, air pollution is a problem that directly affects each and every citizen of Dhaka, with numerous studies concluding that the abject state of our air quality slashes down the average lifespan by years.
In fact, according to the World Health Organization, air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year, primarily due to increased mortality from stroke, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, and of course acute respiratory infections.
Clearly, then, this is a crisis of significant magnitude.
One of the biggest contributors to the continuous deterioration of our air has been the unplanned nature through which Dhaka has rapidly been urbanizing -- construction sites that keep toxic building material openly exposed to the air is not a rare sight in Dhaka as these rob the air of its integrity and pollute it with fine particles that are not supposed to enter the respiratory system of humans and animals alike.
But the biggest reasons why Dhaka’s air is as bad as it is can be ascribed to the brick industry, specifically brickfields that openly carry out the brickmaking process, a process that is inherently bad for the environment. What’s more troubling is that many of these brickfields are completely unregulated as they bellow toxic smoke through kilns. Not only is this one industry that needs to be heavily regulated, but it is clearly in need of a more sustainable approach as the processes still employed in Bangladesh are considered archaic by modern standards.
Air is one of the last few free commodities that is essential to human life, when it loses integrity so does any regard for human life.
Thursday, March 20, 2025
