Daily Times

Last month, 18 people, of which 16 were children, died from inhaling toxic fumes in Keemari when illegal plastic-recycling factories operating in the area began emitting poisonous gases into the air. This is not the first time an incident of this nature has killed people in Keemari-in 2020, 15 people died and another 300 became severely ill when toxic gases from a soybean dust leak seeped into the air, causing the area’s residents to develop breathing difficulties and respiratory infections.

Unfortunately, no one cared enough to investigate the case at the time. It was decided that the incident wasn’t worth pursuing because the factory owners involved were untraceable. No FIRs were filed because the victims’ families did not approach the police directly. This time, the media appears to have caught wind of the incident which explains why it has received so much attention from our policymakers and courts who should have been in the loop already.

Pakistan is no stranger to industrial pollution-air quality in major cities routinely approaches hazardous levels that are associated with a wide range of health issues. Pakistan has the highest levels of mismanaged plastic in South Asia. Despite this, no organized efforts have been made to characterise the exact nature and scale of contaminants found in wastewaters originating from industrial zones. Sometimes the consequences are in plain sight, like in Keemari. Other times, they are less obvious. Low-income groups continue to be at the greatest risk for developing pollution-related illnesses as most industrial units are located in low-income localities, nestled across informal settlements and slums.

Healthcare is not a luxury everyone can afford. There isn’t a single functioning hospital in Keemari meaning that its residents couldn’t have saved their lives even with the knowledge that they were breathing in toxic air. What happened at Keemari goes beyond police negligence; it is tied to the absence of policy frameworks for factories that do whatever they want because they are comfortable in the knowledge that there is no legal oversight to stop them. Is it not unreasonable to expect the disenfranchised to speak for themselves when they have no reason to believe that they will be listened to? *