Hazaribagh Tannery District - The Sixth Most Polluted Place on Earth

Hazaribagh. The name means 'thousand gardens', but the historically whimsical name fits now as much as Hong Kong still meaning 'fragrant harbor'. Once, Hazaribagh may have been a paradise, and perhaps some pockets of it still reach for that golden past. The reality now is that the city is the sixth out of ten most polluted spots on the planet, according to a Green Cross of Switzerland study. Of the 270 registered tanneries in Bangladesh, 90% of these are located here, dumping 22,000 cubic meters of waste water each day. Waste water that includes hexavalent chromium, a heavy metal responsible for lung cancer, stomach and intestinal ulcers. Only two of these tanneries have any kind of waste treatment facility, but if more were added, clean-up would still take many years. There is a long road to travel before it becomes a thousand gardens again, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Environmental Concerns regarding Hazaribagh Tannery