A Criminal
Act of Negligence Is only the Tip of the Iceberg
By A.H. Cemendtaur
CA
Recently, newspaper headlines about a boy’s
death resulting from injuries sustained at an
illegal toxic dump shocked Karachiites. A factory
had used an empty piece of land to dispose of
its industrial waste; the same land was used by
the area children as a playground.
After the factory personnel dumped the untreated
toxic material, children playing there came in
contact with the chemical; one boy died, another’s
leg had to be amputated to save his life.
While the news was really horrifying and put the
Pakistan bureaucracy in action you wonder if that
was the only incident of illegal dumping and the
boy’s death was the only fatality caused
by such toxic industrial waste. The kind of anarchic
country we live in, is it not shamelessly easy
for people to be callous in maximizing their profit
while doing whatever they can possibly get by
with?
You also wonder about other things. In that innocent
death did the society pay a price for something?
But before we dig deeper in answering the philosophical
question let us talk about other facets of the
solid waste problem. People of relatively affluent
neighborhoods of Karachi should not think illegal
toxic waste dumping is not their problem.
Toxic waste dumped at one place would seep through
the ground and pretty soon traces of the toxic
material would be found in aquifers of a much
bigger area. And is it only the industrial solid
waste that Karachi citizens have been turning
a blind eye to? With hospitals at every neighborhood
corner do you wonder where the medical waste goes?
Do car owners ever ask service stations where
the used oil ends up? And most obvious of all,
don’t Karachi citizens see they are living
in filth? Garbage collected from their homes (if
it does get collected) is seldom properly disposed
of; it just rots and finally gets burned at the
neighborhood dump.
And in this last observation you have the answer
of the philosophical question. The deceased boy
paid the price of society’s collective ignorance,
the price of being left behind, the price of collectively
knowing so little about the modern times we live
in.
We live in an economically disparate world. There
are industrialized countries where people have
recognized the hazards associated with modern
manufacturing. Because of that recognition laws
relating to the preservation of environment are
getting tougher by the day in those countries.
Hazardous manufacturing operations are destined
to move to environmentally soft Third World where
such laws either don’t exist or are not
implemented ( as is the case with Pakistan).
And environmentally backward countries are invariably
the ones with a majority ignorant populace and
communities that are not directly involved with
the matters of their governance. Democratic societies
that are active and conscious about the well being
of all members of the community make sure one
member does not take advantage of others, getting
rich at the expense of the society.
The episode of illegal toxic waste dumping homes
in the same lesson we have been avoiding to learn.
It is not about a tougher implementation of a
few laws; it is about thoroughly overhauling the
whole system.
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