At years old, Yeasmin Begum has lived near the Amin Bazar landfill on the outskirts of Dhaka her whole life. She says the stench often triggers allergies, including colds and coughing. “Sometimes it is quite difficult for us to breathe when waste collectors burn the waste under the open sky. Smoke and ashes envelop our home and surroundings,” she says. That’s a problem that could get worse under a plan by municipal authorities to burn trash on a much larger scale. A so-called waste-to-energy project would incinerate up to 3,0000 metric tons of trash daily to heat a boiler, which would then produce steam to drive a turbine, thereby generating electricity. This would be the first-ever waste-to-energy project in Bangladesh, part of an effort to tackle the increasing volume of municipal waste. But the 42.5-megawatt North Dhaka project has raised concerns among nearby communities that have long suffered from exposure to polluted air, water, and soil. Dhaka North City Corporation is the municipal authority overseeing the project, which is owned by the China Machinery Engineering Corporation. Some of the total $467 million in total funding has been pledged by multilateral lenders including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank, both headquartered in China. The project is due to be completed by December 2028, four years later than initially planned. For nearby residents like Yeasmin, the prospect of thousands of tons of municipal waste every being burned every day, potentially releasing toxic substances like heavy metals and dioxins,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The Buriganga River, which flows by Dhaka city, is one of Bangladesh’s most polluted waterways and ranks among the most contaminated urban rivers in the world. Every day, the 29-kilometre- (18-mile-) long Buriganga River absorbs toxic industrial effluent from hundreds of factories, continuous tannery discharges, untreated sewage and solid waste, leaving much of the river virtually lifeless for fish. However, in the Buriganga, where native fish species have essentially vanished, endangered Ganges river dolphins (Platanista gangetica) continue to persist. A recent study published in the Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity found that around 20 dolphins live in the river. Researchers conducted the study for 12 months, from September 2023 to August 2024, and systematically surveyed a 27-km (16.7-mi) stretch of this heavily polluted river that skirts the southern edge of Dhaka. “The Buriganga is not a usual place for dolphins, where native fishes have largely vanished. Leaving the river full of invasive suckermouth catfish [Hypostomus Plecostomus, locally called sakar fish],” one of the researchers, Md. Aminur Rahman, told Mongabay. “When we found [the dolphins], we were amazed at how it was possible. Because the river is not livable for fish. Around the year, we didn’t track any dolphins only during two of the months, but all the other 10 months we tracked them.” The highest number of dolphins were seen in December, and throughout the winter season, and none were seen in October 2023 or between July and August of 2024. The dolphin groups averaged 4.18 individuals, higher than in earlier…This article was originally published on Mongabay