When you ask someone to describe Mumbai as a city, what do you think they will say?
Beautiful. Full of opportunities. Vibrant.
Yes, Mumbai is all of these things but it’s also pretty smelly. Well, if some place is smelly, there is a reason behind it. The big question is what is generating that stench that everyone keeps complaining about.
Mumbai’s coastline is now considered among the most polluted in the world and one of the reasons for this is that the sewage that is being generated, receives only a basic preliminary treatment before it is pumped into the sea.
According to a TOI report, what is even more shocking is the fact that around 2,100 million litres a day (MLD) of waste water sewage is released into the Arabian Sea and the creeks and the waste arriving from the plant is pumped 3kms into the sea. Not just that, the waste only gets preliminary treatment before it is discharged.
“The Malad creek does not have the required assimilative capacity due to nominal tidal flushing. The dissolved oxygen (DO) level in the Malad creek has reached zero, raising serious environmental concerns,”
states an internal note of the BMC’s sewage operation department, according to The Times Of India.
This doesn’t end here. A global study has found the sea near the Mumbai coast to be among the world’s most polluted and civil engineers have said that around 25% of the city’s waste, which comes from the slums goes straight into nallahs and creeks.
The sewage has reduced dissolved oxygen levels in water bodies and poses a threat to marine life too. All of these facts and figures throw light on something that we feel and face everyday but how much, as individuals, are we trying to rectify it completely? There is a dire need to reduce the waste we are producing and also upgrade our sewage treatment in the country.
The BMC has announced that they will now be spending Rs 10,000 crore to set up seven new plants at the same locations where the existing ones stand.
What are your thoughts on this?