Finally taking notice of media reports and fisherfolk’s complaints about garbage dumping at the city’s beaches, a Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) team visited the seashore along coastal villages of Ibrahim Hyderi and Rehri, where the defunct City District Government Karachi and private contactors have been disposing of tonnes of garbage for several years. Talking to the fisherfolk, the members of the SEPA team including the agency’s assistant director Abdul Rauf and environmental inspector Mohsin Khan announced that the environmental watchdog would soon register cases with the Environmental Tribunal against those involved in converting beaches into garbage dumping sites.
The team members further observed that some influential people of these areas are deliberately having waste dumped at marked points for reclamation of coastal land. The beaches are spread over a vast area and pollution has emerged as a major problem for the city’s historical fisherfolk settlements including Ibrahim Hyderi, Lat Basti and Rehri Goth.
Huge piles of the garbage including plastic and polyethylene bags, rotten food, domestic garbage, syringes, urine bags and other hospital waste and animal offal can be seen at the beaches. Harmful toxic chemicals from factories are also disposed of in the sea.
Garbage from several towns of the city is dumped on the coast on a regular basis. For the residents of around seven historical coastal villages in the city that have a population of more than 300,000, garbage dumping for reclamation of land has emerged as an issue of life and death. The media has highlighted the issue several times and the fisherfolk have lodged several complaints, but the authorities have taken no action. “We have filed our complaint several times and requested the authorities to take steps for stopping the influential people of the area and others from throwing garbage on the beaches, but nobody took notice. Now, we hope that SEPA officials will do something to protect the beaches,” said spokesperson for the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF). “A large number of trucks arrive at the beaches daily, offload the waste and burn it, polluting the coastal areas,” the spokesperson added.
Garbage dumping at city’s beaches: SEPA finally steps in
