We have shown serious concerns about pollution and climate change at government and private levels. But it seems we, as a society, are adept only at paying lip-service. What is happening at the Creek Club in Karachi is a good example of how we are apathetic towards our environment.
Located at an attractive edge of a creek leading to open sea, this club manifests almost all the reasons and the contradictions that keep Pakistan behind the rest of the world by decades. After all, only in a convoluted and cruel society will the average monthly bill of a club member exceed the average monthly wage illegally given to the contracted sanitation workers of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) and the Sindh municipalities.
This is, however, about a much more earthly matter. The impeccable services offered by the club — gym and jogging, beverages and brunches, parlour and partying — are praiseworthy. But they also give rise to a fundamental question. How does the club disposes of its raw sewage generated as a by-product of its activities and operations?
It may be best to begin by knowing the latest facts of this tragic saga, as updated by the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) through its letter DHA/Appeal-2587-03/23 dated May 12, 2023. The club produces an effluent (raw sewage) of 40,000 gallons per day, or 14.6 million gallons per year. Without batting an eyelid, without a strain on conscience and without a concern for the consequences, the entire unsavoury semi-liquid stuff is directly released into the waters of the Arabian Sea, polluting the ocean, killing marine life, spreading filth and disease, and harming the environment.
This unforgiveable environmental violation has continued on for over 20 years. The club management as well as its members have no remorse at the scale of destruction they are causing, and the Sindh Environmental Authority has no interest in this issue at all. All this illegal dumping is considered kosher even while the sewage treatment plants next to an international food chain and the nearby golf club operate at half of their designed capacities.
Is there someone who can see how the club in question has been contributing to the marine and environmental pollution, and ask the club to perform its corporate social responsibility?
NAEEM SADIQ
KARACHI
