HYDERABAD – The Institute of Environmental Engineering and Management (IEEM) Mehran University of Engineering and Technology in collaboration with Sindh Community Foundation organized a seminar on perspective of antibiotics in environment and environmental justice.
The university spokesman informed here Friday objective of the seminar was to create awareness and advance understanding of students on presence of antibiotics in the waters, concept of environmental justice and rights as well as exploring avenues to include environmental justice in policy level process.
Dr. Jeffrey Layton Ullman of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of Utah USA delivered lecture on antibiotics in the environment, mitigating human and ecological risk.
Quoting various research he informed that drugs get into the drinking water supply through several routes as some people flush unneeded medication down toilets while other medicine gets into the water supply after people take medication, absorb some, and pass the rest out in urine or feces.
He said the investigation showed some pharmaceuticals remain even after waste water treatments and cleansing by water treatment plants. Although levels are low reportedly measured in parts per billion or trillion and utility companies contend the water is safe, experts from private organizations and the government cannot say for sure whether the levels of drugs in drinking water are low enough to discount harmful health effects.
He said that billions of pounds of plastic currently circulating in the ocean and amounts expected to triple in world’s oceans in a decade which expected to outweigh all fish in ocean by 2050 and Plastic found in 60 percent of seabirds and hundred percent of sea turtles.
The head of Sindh Community Foundation Javed Hussain Soz, addressing session on environmental justice, said that the situation requires fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.
Like mass incarceration, he said many facets of society are not only socially unsustainable but also ecologically unsustainable. Environmental justice emerged as a concept in the United States in the early 1980, he said and added that Environmental rights mean any proclamation of a human right to environmental conditions of a specified quality.
He pointed out the case of the Hyderabad with perspective of environmental degradation adding Hyderabad having roughly estimated population of 1.733 million and second largest urban hub of the Sindh province has poor waste management , ill Drainage and sanitation system with lack of tree plantation because of the rapid housing schemes .
He said pollution both noise and air in Hyderabad is due to increase of number of vehicles, unclean environment, Improper safety measures in industrial
areas, poor hospital waste management and improper implementation of the law related to waste management. Usage of plastic bags and replacement of agriculture land into housing schemes also causing miseries, he added.
Suggesting a number of recommendations to the policy makers and planners he added that urban forestation and social forestry at large scale in urban areas was essential to reduce emission. Besides, environmental rights need to be included in curriculum from primary to university level education, he said.
He further proposed research and training for the budget planners to apply environmental justice in planning and budgeting process and stressed upon rapid legal procedures by environmental tribunal to remove these miseries.
H said that there was need to create space for discourse at policy level that government is responding to the challenges and how and whether the research community and academia is engaged in seeking solutions.
The Dean Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering Mehran University Prof. Dr. Khan Muhammad Brohi in concluding remarks said that it was the duty of every individual to take care of the environment so messages should be disseminated at large scale to change behavior of the society.
