Bangladesh tanneries prepping leather for shoes, belts, wallets and purses are dumping toxic chemicals into a river at a new industrial complex more than a year after the government shut them down for poisoning a different river and using child labour.
"It's killing the river. The colour of the water has changed, " Abdus Shakur, a local resident who works as a day labourer, told The Associated Press last week. "I have been living here for decades and the condition of the river has changed dramatically over the last year. "
Turning cow hides into soft, hair - free leather can be a dirty business, and in the Hazaribagh neighbourhood of Dhaka, the former home to more than 150 tanneries, the air a year ago was so noxious with chemicals and rotting hide trimmings that it was repeatedly named one of the most polluted places on earth by environmentalists. The adjacent Buriganga River, a source of drinking water for 180, 000 people, was considered poisoned.