1. We would like to start with your short introduction covering your academic journey, childhood, and hobbies.
I was born in the small village of Bogra in 1956. My mother went to visit our village, and I was born during her visit. My family was actually living in Dhaka during that time, and before 1945, they were living in Calcutta. Initially, we lived in Old Dhaka and later moved to Arambagh when I was 4 years old. My father was a medical doctor and practised in Calcutta, India before 1945. After returning from India, he settled in Dhaka and started practising in old Dhaka and had become famous for his excellent homoeopathic treatments.
I was admitted and accepted into class 1 at Arambagh Primary School, Dhaka, in 1960, when I was four years old. However, I became sick and stopped going to school as advised by my doctor. I was readmitted to an English Medium School called Don’s Kindergarten School run by European teachers in Segunbagicha, Dhaka, in KG II in 1962. In 1965 I was readmitted to a Bengali medium school called Dhanmondi Govt. Boys High School. I completed my SSC from Rajshahi Collegiate School and got admitted to Dhaka college. I have been involved in politics since 1965 and have had the opportunity to work with Bangabandhu directly. After getting into Dhaka College, I joined the student league and became well known. I have witnessed many political ups and downs, including the liberation war. I was involved in the war of liberation, and I am a proud freedom fighter.
2. Shed some light into your career journey and involvement with several projects.
After the liberation war, the dynamics of politics had changed. There was corruption spreading into the leaders. Therefore, I decided to leave politics and move abroad to pursue higher studies as per the suggestion of the younger brother of my grandfather, who completed his M.Sc in chemistry and was awarded gold medal That time all our meritorious students got the opportunity to get a state scholarship, especially from socialist countries. So, most of the brilliant students left Bangladesh. I applied to two countries and got selected in both as a top candidate. I went to Bulgaria to study petroleum engineering. This was a combined master’s course. I returned in 1980 after completing my degree. After returning, I initially worked as a consultant and later gave an interview at Bangladesh chemical industries corporation as a chemical engineer, and I did so well that I received an interview increment, a master’s increment, and a first-class increment, and my gross salary became around Tk. 850 as an entry-level Assistant Chemical Engineer. I was posted to under construction Polash Urea Fertilizer Factory (PUFF).
While I was working as an assistant chemical engineer, I soon became a very liked person by the authority. Especially Engr. Matin, GM, PUFF used to like me so much that he made me his technical assistant. I was the in-charge of all the planning and monitoring and scheduling of that plant. I was asked by the GM to verify each and every bill before he used to sign them. While working there, I witnessed morally incorrect incidents while leading me to lose interest in the job. I went to the head office and told them to transfer me, or I will leave the job immediately. They immediately responded, and I was transferred to the Planning Division in head office in January 1984. The project profile of BCIC Head Office was revised and updated by me. So, I worked as a planning engineer for a while. In 1984 I became the general secretary of Bangladesh chemicals corporation Engineers’ Association and also had become very active in The Institution of Engineers’, Bangladesh.
When I was working in BCIC, I was in charge of many factories, including the Chittagong chemical complex. When I visited there, I was shook witnessing the mercury pollution and the hazardous waste produced by those factories, and the immediate thought that came to my mind was to find out how these pollutions could be stopped. In the meantime, I was connected by some Japanese companies as they were one of the biggest suppliers of BCIC. I asked them whether we could do something, and they replied positively. I had to work for it from 1984to 1990 to convince the government to pass a project to change the mercury graphite electrolysis process of chlorine production to a more pollution-free ion-exchange membrane process. I went to various ministries to demonstrate the benefits of this project, and eventually, I was successful. It was a one hundred and eleven crore Taka project.
3. What was the most rewarding experience you’ve had while working in the environmental sector?
The best achievement of my works in the environmental sector are my students, who are working as environmental specialists in national and international organisations and contributing specially in mega construction projects in Bangladesh.
As a pioneer researcher, I have developed a membrane air-stripping process to remove and recover organic compounds from water/wastewater, which is contributing in VOCs removals and reducing pollution globally.
The work I had done to stop the mercury pollution at Chittagong chemical complex by changing the mercury graphite electrolysis process of chlorine production to a more pollution-free ion-exchange membrane process.
The work I have done as Assistant Project Manager of a CAD 6.6 million Public Works and Government Services Canada project named “Treatment of Hydrocarbon Contaminated Soil”, in Argentia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
4. Share your thoughts and opinion on the implementation of Bangladesh reaching SDG goals.
Sustainability is a difficult thing to achieve. You cannot reach a sustainable situation until you give up your greed. I have visited 33 countries and lived in many, and in those developed countries, there are rich people who are playing an active role in contributing to society. But, in Bangladesh, the scenario is quite the opposite. If we want to assure sustainable development, we need to improve the environmental qualities. Here we see the rich people possessing a strong desire to become wealthier regardless of whether it will affect the environment. If you look at all the industrial pollution and illegal activities, you will get a clear picture of the entire scenario. Regardless of having ETP, most of the factories do not operate them. If you look at our rivers, you will get a clear idea of how badly the pollution spreads. By sustainability, we indicate positive changes that will last long. We are eating food that is semi-poisonous regardless of what you are having. The live fish you are buying is fed with foods harmful to humans; the broiler chicken you are having is continuously injected and fed with growth hormones, and these substances gradually affect the human body. Sustainability is not only about having things; it is more about assuring quality. If we speak about the environment, Dhaka is one of the most polluted cities globally. We are living in one of the cities with the lowest mileage globally, with an average driving speed of 6 kilometers per hour, similar to our walking speed. Therefore, according, to me, achieve sustainability, we need to have a long-term plan and work on it accordingly regardless of the area, whether it is transport, population growth, or forestry. We need to plan in such a way that this city gradually becomes a liveable place.
Sustainability doesn’t mean how much wealth we are producing. It is more about how we are producing and what the distribution is.
5. Throughout your teaching experience at home and abroad, what are the differences and similarities you found in the student’s interest in learning?
As I lived mostly in Canada besides Bangladesh, I would like to start with a reference from their education system. In Canada, they divide the students completing their high school into three groups. The first group consists of students who have scored good grades in their high school, and they will get state scholarships, and they can enrol in any university according to their desire. The second category includes students who could not achieve as excellent grades as the first group but have satisfactory grades. The last group consists of students who did not do well than the other two groups. In Canadian culture, the parents do not bear any of the university expenses of their son/ daughter so that they can solely understand the value of education. So, most students of the first group gets direct entry to the universities with scholarships. Most of the students belong to the second group also join the university and works hard for a scholarship to finance their university degree.
In contrast, the third group get involved in various kind of jobs and enjoy their life as it is pretty difficult for them to pursue a university degree. After getting into university, the students with scholarships have to work hard to retain them, whereas the students without scholarships work hard to get a scholarship. Besides that, the government also provides 100% interest-free loans for the students studying in the university if they pay it within six months after graduating. In their education system, students put their efforts and work hard to retain their scholarships and learn in the process. But in Bangladesh, the scenario is not the same. Most of the students are funded by their parents, who hardly understand the value of education, which creates a big difference. I feel the students in Bangladesh are gradually losing their eagerness to learn, especially in this online system. The number of students who have the willingness to learn is decreasing gradually.
6. As Bangladesh rapidly develops, what are the biggest environmental challenges ahead?
You see, Bangladesh’s economy is doing good, and there is no doubt about that, But, as a freedom fighter, my expectations are much higher from our country. If you analyze the history of the development of any country, starting from the UK to the USA, pollution was a problem at the initial stage. Even if you look at China, 30 years ago, it was highly polluted. There was a time in the USA when you could ignite a fire on rivers. There were incidents of people getting burned in their boats by accidental fire ignited on the rivers because of the pollution as there was biogas from the decaying of organic materials in the rivers and water bodies. But if you search for such incidents, they have become obsolete in their country where our country went entirely backward, and we are the generation to blame. We have developed the country economically but destroyed it from an environmental perspective. Back in my time, when I used to live around Buriganga, water was so clean that people could actually drink it, and in fact, people used to drink it. We have covered the lakes and constructed commercial buildings on them without realizing what we are doing to our environment! The place we know as Motijheel actually was the name of a lake that does not exist like most metropolitan water bodies. The food we are eating is slowly poisoning us, and even the water we are drinking is not safe either.
7. What are your thoughts and opinions on our waste management system and recycling system, and how can it impact our environment?
Till now it is not satisfactory at all. I have been relentlessly working to improve this sector since 2008 and so far did not see any notable progress. As one of their experts, I am involved as an Expert Member, Monitoring Committee and Negotiation Committee, Waste to Energy Research Projects financed by Bangladesh Energy and Power Research Council (EPRC), Govt. of Bangladesh. Presently monitoring an ongoing waste to energy research project conducted by the faculty members of Chemical Engineering Department, BUET funded by EPRC. I also worked for BRAC as a consultant, where we nearly found success in a waste-to-energy conversion project, which was suddenly postponed right before its operation. I am still trying to make some progress in this particular area and hoping to make progress in the future.
Bangladesh is a small country in terms of its area. If you consider Canada as a reference, Bangladesh isa very small country. Canada contains gas fields that alone are bigger than Bangladesh itself. Canada has so many resources, predominantly methane hydrate, which is equivalent to double of the entire world’s energy resource. In Alberta, most of the soil is soaked with oil. They have both conventional and unconventional oil. Despite that, they have been importing LNG and LPG for a long time alongside exporting energy resources. The US also exports a large number of energy resources abroad. Bangladesh is very much import-dependent when it comes to energy. Even our animal feeds are mostly imported as we do not have the resources to produce them.
I learned about the biogas production system while pursuing my master’s program in Canada, I also worked for a private company planning waste management for various countries. I was doing the planning, which was later executed by those countries. I was also designing landfills for those countries. In our country, we do not have any modern engineered sanitary landfills yet. Our waste contains over 60% of organic waste. This waste can be converted to biogas and organic fertilizer. But unfortunately, we are being able to use only 2% of this organic waste. In Europe Union, if the trash contains more than 5% of the organics, no landfill will accept it as it is considered as wastage of resources. If you convert the organic waste to compost, that is the nutrient. It is called nutrient recycling. Our waste collection is barely 40%-50%. Where are the other wastages going? Some of these are becoming air pollution, some are becoming dust, and another portion of it is going into the water bodies, which is the main reason behind our pollution. Indian cows are considered one of the most significant contributors to greenhouse gas methane, but it is not even the country with the highest cow population. Argentina has the highest cow population, and they are still managing the pollution flawlessly. And the main reason behind that is India still does not have a modern waste management system. If you have a proper waste management system, your waste will become a resource. These are the nutrients that you are recycling.
8. What is your expectation from the youth on their involvement with environmental sustainability, clean water, pollution control?
Bangladeshi youth requires more motivation. I think they are misguided and spoonfeded. They need to break out of the traditional norm in order to succeed.
