Pollution: ‘Tanneries’ waste damaging environment’

WWF to hold workshops in Sialkot to outline best water management practices focusing on small and medium enterprises

SIALKOT:

Discharge of untreated waste water by nearly 350 tanneries in Sialkot has become a major problem in the city, WWF Water Security and Stewardship Manager Ali Hasnain Sayed said on Tuesday.

He was speaking at a seminar to raise awareness regarding the impact of leather tanneries on the environment.

The WWF-Pakistan and the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) had arranged the event at the SCCI auditorium.

Sayed told participants of the seminar about a water stewardship project that he said was aimed at reducing practices causing pollution and introducing mechanisms to check pollution. The project would help the industry meet global trade standards set by the World Trade Organisation, he said.

SCCI Senior Vice President Mir Alamgir Meyer said the industry had not been given any credible solution to control environmental pollution.

WWF-Pakistan Senior Director Ejaz Ahmad, WWF-Pakistan Senior Project Officer Sohail Ali Naqvi, traders and industrialists attended the seminar.

The WWF will hold workshops in Sialkot to outline best water management practices focusing on small and medium enterprises within the water industry as part of its water stewardship project. The European Union is funding the project.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2015.