The Buriganga river is economically very important to the city. Bangladesh is a river based country and Buriganga river acts as a connector with other parts of the country. So many people rely on running the launches and boats on the river to earn their livelihood. In the past the river also played a valuable role in trade.

At present the river is extremely polluted with industrial, household and medical wastes, plastics, oil, sewage etc. It's polluted to the point of being an environmental disaster. The city dumps out tons of raw sewage in the river yet the poor people living on the outskirts have no choice but to use the heavily polluted water which is extremely harmful for human consumption and use. The oxygen level in the water is still 5 times below the acceptable level.

In a 1998 survey, 249 industries were identified that were responsible for polluting the river. In recent times, more industries were built along or near the banks of the river. Most of these industries dont have an effluent treatment plant thus all the industrial wastes are still dumped on the river. More than 60,000 cubic meters of toxic wastes from industrial units are dumped on the river. 

Several studies  also found that each day about 900 cubic meters of unsolicited domestic and human wastes are dumped on the river. The city’s ONLY ONE sewage treatment plant has the capacity of only 10% of the total disposal of sewage, but due to various mismanagement issues it only uses one third of its capacity.

These are only one of the many reasons behind the extreme water pollution of the Buriganga river. At the moment it has turned only into a dead water body. Various sources share some solutions for this problem- like creating public awareness, increasing water flow, controlling waste disposal etc. In 2003, a project involving relocation of tannery industries was taken but it helped the river very little. In 2010, a much hyped Buriganga River Restoration project was taken but it had failed to take off even after 9 years. The project was originally targeted to be completed by 2013 but it was extended thrice and the cost of it increased with it. In 2012, a project was undertaken to extract solid wastes from the rivers but it also resulted in futility as waste dumping continued. 

As visible, many projects were undertaken to save the river but most of them failed to do so. 

MY SOLUTION:

Building a large scale Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) can be a solution to save the river. ETP is a waste water treatment method which is designed to purify industrial waste waters. It can release clean water back to the environment by flowing the waste water through a specific treatment method.

ETP plants work at various levels and can process water from different industrial sectors like chemicals, drugs, textiles, refineries etc. Wastewater from industries enters the effluent or sewage treatment plant and goes through several levels of treatment before going to the environment. 

Here's a flowchart on how an Effluent Treatment Plant works: