The textile industry in Bangladesh has been a great engine for boosting economic growth in the country. However, with great success came environmental deterioration. Untreated effluents containing heavy metals are being released into rivers from nearby factories, affecting the health of people who live along the polluted rivers. The existing law in Bangladesh, requiring such factories to install an effluent treatment plant (ETP), has not been effective in reducing environmental noncompliance

For the question of environmental preservation, a multiple-choice question, but only half the respondents selected the response “environmental preservation”. About 29% of the respondents answered that they installed ETPs to follow a foreign buyer which was the second most popular answer followed by following the government rule.

In terms of monitoring and Enforcement. It is often pointed out that monitoring and enforcement by the Department of Environment (DoE) are insufficient. According to the results, 22 out of 23 companies answered that they have been inspected by the DoE. In the subsequent question, only two companies answered that they have ever been penalized by DoE. This seems to suggest that the responding companies are “clean”. However, Figure 4 shows that the DoE’s monitoring is done on a regular basis, mostly at three-month intervals. Therefore, the companies were likely not caught.

The results were consistent with previous findings: The low willingness of companies to engage in environmental protection activities and inadequate monitoring and enforcement by the government authorities induced the non-compliance of the textile companies. the survey results also revealed many possible drawbacks in the country’s institutions that did not motivate companies to comply with the environmental regulations: The high import tax, inadequate monitoring and enforcement by the government authority, and no explicit subsidy scheme has resulted into the reality we see today.

This article is adapted from the open access research article:

Sakamoto, M., Ahmed, T., Begum, S., & Huq, H. (2019). Water Pollution and the Textile Industry in Bangladesh: Flawed Corporate Practices or Restrictive Opportunities? Sustainability, 11(7), 1951. doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/su11071951