TY - JOUR
T1 - Dhaka Sitting on a Plastic Bomb
T2 - Issues and Concerns around Waste Governance, Water Quality, and Public Health
AU - Nadiruzzaman, Md
AU - Shewly, Hosna Jahan
AU - Esha, Afsana Afrin
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank all the experts and practitioners who have supported writing up the research by providing their reflections and comments on different aspects of the total write-up. We are also highly indebted to the reviewers for reading the paper and helping to strengthen the quality of the article by giving their comments. MN’s authorship is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany‘s Excellence Strategy–EXC 2037 ‘CLICCS–Climate, Climatic Change, and Society’—Project Number: 390683824, contribution to the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) of Universität Hamburg.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors.
PY - 2022/3
Y1 - 2022/3
N2 - Plastic, an offer of modernity, has become one of the essential parts of our everyday life. However, it is presenting a massive threat in altered forms, to our health and environment. Plastic does not only pollute the surface environment, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, but toxic elements released from plastics also percolate down the surface and contaminate groundwater, which we often use as ‘safe’ drinking water. This probable future risk is deeply rooted in the entire governance infrastructure of plastic waste which could potentially lead to contamination of groundwater. Thus, a state-sponsored ‘safe drinking water’ initiative could contrarily produce a ‘risk society’. A recent study finds 81% of tap water samples collected worldwide contained plastic pollutants, which means that annually we may be ingesting between 3000 and 4000 microparticles of plastic from tap water. Based on review, ethnographic observations and interviews, and lived experience in a plastic-wrapped city (Dhaka), this paper sheds light on the complex interface of plastic, water, and public health, on the relevance of Beck’s ‘risk society’ to understand this complexity, and on replicating the idea of ‘risk society’ in the case of Bangladesh. Through understanding the plastic–groundwater–waste management nexus, this paper highlights and advocates for a new strategy of plastic governance in modern states.
AB - Plastic, an offer of modernity, has become one of the essential parts of our everyday life. However, it is presenting a massive threat in altered forms, to our health and environment. Plastic does not only pollute the surface environment, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, but toxic elements released from plastics also percolate down the surface and contaminate groundwater, which we often use as ‘safe’ drinking water. This probable future risk is deeply rooted in the entire governance infrastructure of plastic waste which could potentially lead to contamination of groundwater. Thus, a state-sponsored ‘safe drinking water’ initiative could contrarily produce a ‘risk society’. A recent study finds 81% of tap water samples collected worldwide contained plastic pollutants, which means that annually we may be ingesting between 3000 and 4000 microparticles of plastic from tap water. Based on review, ethnographic observations and interviews, and lived experience in a plastic-wrapped city (Dhaka), this paper sheds light on the complex interface of plastic, water, and public health, on the relevance of Beck’s ‘risk society’ to understand this complexity, and on replicating the idea of ‘risk society’ in the case of Bangladesh. Through understanding the plastic–groundwater–waste management nexus, this paper highlights and advocates for a new strategy of plastic governance in modern states.
KW - Dhaka
KW - drinking water
KW - plastic
KW - public health
KW - risk society
KW - waste governance
U2 - 10.3390/earth3010002
DO - 10.3390/earth3010002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85135875046
VL - 3
SP - 18
EP - 30
JO - Earth (Switzerland)
JF - Earth (Switzerland)
IS - 1
ER -