Washing in Dimapur’s one river worries flood control board

EMN
DIMAPUR, DECEMBER 21

That ‘Dhobiwallas’ (washer men) men, hostels and even hospital staff make it convenient to wash their laundry in Dimapur’s one and only major river, Dhansiri is bad enough. The Dhansiri River Flood Control Board issued a press statement Saturday and appealed to the district authorities to address the menace and ban the activity at the earliest. “Dhansiri River Flood Control Board is deeply concerned over the random washing of clothes using chemical detergents and other toxic materials. Further the hospitals hotel and hostels stuff wash their cloth in this polluted water and is given to the hostellers, patients and the hotel guest which is sure way of infecting various kinds of diseases and sickness,’ the board’s chairman Hokheto Kiba stated in the press release.
In the interest of good health for the people and prevention of infectious diseases the board has urgently appealed for action from the authorities. “We feel most urgently that this random washing of clothes in the polluted water has to be immediately restricted and request the authorities to organized a clean way of washing and bathing of the public by maintaining ‘a Dhobi Ghat’ which will be the best remedies of pollution of river and maintaining of public health,” the board said.
The board hopes that the authorities would ban the “random washing of clothes and bathing in the polluted river till Dhobi Ghat is arranged”. Further immediate action is solicited, the Dhansiri River Flood Control Board stated.• It has been estimated that up to 80 % of India’s urban waste ends up in its rivers.

Scary Facts

What polluted rivers do to Humans
• An estimated 1,000 children in India die every day due to disease caused by polluted water.
• One of the more common and dangerous pollutants in the environment is cadmium, which kills human fetal sex organ cells. Its widespread presence means it is in almost everything we eat and drink.
• River pollution has negative effect on aquatic ecosystems. The negative impact on plants and animals often leads to decline in species, and sometimes even to extinction of entire species (Yangtze River dolphin)
• Fourteen billion pounds of garbage, mostly plastic, is dumped into the ocean every year.
• Polluted coastal water costs the global economy $12.8 billion a year in death and disease.
• Over 1 million seabirds are killed by plastic waste per year. Over 100,000 sea mammals and countless fish are killed per year due to pollution.
• Concentrations of two common pollutants, PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOSA (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid), which can be found in nonstick cookware and stain-repellant fabrics, can impair immunity in children. They can also prevent vaccines from triggering sufficient quantities of protective antibodies.
• A 2010 study found that children in families who live near freeways are twice as likely to have autism as kids who live farther away from freeways. Scientists believe the increased risk is due to exposure to pollutants given off by freeway traffic.
• The Ganges River in India is one of the most polluted rivers in the world. The pollution includes sewage, trash, food, and animal remains. In some places the Ganges is septic, and corpses of semi-cremated adults or enshrouded babies drift down the river.
• Each year 1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are dumped into U.S. waters
• Today, there are between 300 and 500 chemicals in the average person’s body that were not found in anyone’s body before 1920. Each year there are thousands of new chemicals sold or used in new products. There are more than 75,000 synthetic chemicals on the market today
• Globally, 15 million children under the age of five die each year because of diseases caused by drinking water
• For 1.1.billion people around the world, clean water in unobtainable. Almost half of the world’s population does not have proper water treatment.
• China and India are countries notorious for excessive water pollution.
• Yangtze and Ganges are world’s most polluted big rivers.