Published : 08 Jan 2023, 06:39 PM
Updated : 08 Jan 2023, 06:39 PM
The government has sent 480 tonnes of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, better known as DDT, which was brought in from Pakistan in the 1980s as a measure against malaria-carrying mosquitos, to France for safe disposal.
The powdered chemical, known to negatively influence reproductive development via disruption of multiple endocrine pathways, was removed from Chattogram, said Environment Minister Md Shahab Uddin.
Bangladesh shipped in a large consignment in 1985 spending Tk 35.9 million before banning its use four years later. But the imported insecticide stayed in stock at Agrabad central pharmacy with no safe way to get rid of it from the country.
The move to ship the chemical to France was announced last year.
Shahab Uddin mentioned that even a small dose entering the bloodstream could prove fatal to humans.
“The World Health Organisation declared the insecticide dangerous to humans and Bangladesh is now free of this harmful chemical.”
The government move was assisted by an NGO that paid Tk 230 million of the total expenditure, he said.
The government had earlier taken up a project, Pesticide Risk Reduction In Bangladesh, to remove DDT in an environment-friendly manner with cooperation from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization.
The project trained workers to package the powdered chemical safely with Polyeco Group, an environmental solution company based in Greece, in charge of the removal process.
Farid Ahmed, an official of the Department of Environment, who is in charge of the project, said the Stockholm Convention, which Bangladesh entered in 2001, calls for the ban or reduced use of persistent organic pollutants, including DDT.
