DUMPING effluent into waterways or the sewerage system is a countrywide phenomenon. There are stipulations that dictate that major industrial units must treat their waste prior to discharge. Yet these are flouted with impunity, for two reasons.

One, the industrialists responsible for environmental pollution are interested only in making a quick buck and could not care less about the damage they are doing in the process. Two, the country’s provincial environmental protection agencies have been turning a blind eye to the poisoning by polluters with industrial clout.

Graft, it is alleged, is one reason for this collusion. The other, and this seems far more plausible, is that workers and bureaucrats in provincial environmental protection agencies are simply no match for the influence enjoyed by industrialists with links to those even more powerful than themselves.

Against this backdrop, it is heartening to hear that the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate has cancelled the licences of some 350 industrial units on the grounds that they are polluting the city of Karachi and, ultimately, the shoreline. The leases of the guilty parties, it is learnt, could also be rendered null and void.

Factories both big and small have been destroying our waterways for decades with their toxins and it is about time that they were held to account. The example set by SITE should be followed by other industrial estates in the cities. What we are talking about here is not just our own future but that of our children.

No compromise should be made with whose who are wilfully destroying the environment and whose vested interests take precedence over the national good. There is no shortage of such people in Pakistan. Environmental protection laws need to be tightened up. The law ought to apply across all class ranks.