It is early June and the hands of the clock strike noon. Seated in a white-washed waiting room, Aaminah stares at the clock. The pungent smell of hospital disinfectant, typical of an out-patient department (OPD), make her feel queasy. Time does not pass. Fatigue and a constantly throbbing headache make her heavy-headed.

Over a period of few nights, Aaminah had turned into an insomniac. Earlier that day, she had experienced shivers. “I could barely stand, let alone walk,” she explains, while continually scratching her wrists and flinching with discomfort. Slowly, the burning and itching increased. As she now lay under a doctor’s supervision, it became evident that she was a victim of mercury poisoning. Her mother was taken aback by the diagnosis. All along her respiratory tract, the ultrasound showed a thick lining of toxic accumulation, the doctor tells her mother. Aaminah speculates that a sushi dinner, a few days back, might be the reason behind her sickness. The doctor nods in agreement.

In 2015, Time magazine reported that as many as 351,000 people die of food poisoning globally every year.

The cycle of dumping waste on to the consumer’s plate

As endorsed by Dr Rakshan Ibrahim, a dermatologist at Skin Centre in Karachi, one of the many causes of this is the ingestion of lead and mercury present in seafood, which is introduced in the global food chain. Also known as heavy-metal poisoning, consumers have reported that growing up on a diet which includes tuna sandwiches, sushi and other kinds of seafood have led to contraction of various types of metal poisoning.

As reported in an article in The Guardian in 2009, shellfish contamination ranges from bacterial to viral. The magnitude of pollutants found under the ocean is only on the rise. For a consumer, the potential hazards caused by shellfish poisoning may result in breathlessness, gastrointestinal diseases, respiratory inflammation and muscular weakness.

As endured by Aaminah and others, raw fish, such as sushi, bears greater chance of mercury poisoning. Most often, the process of cooking the meat eliminates viruses and bacteria. However, materials such as lead, mercury and arsenic still remain. In case of sushi, though, not cooking at all may result in worse disasters.

Industrial waste and trash on beaches percolates into the ocean from the shore where waves meet the harbour, and seawater unwelcomingly meets the dumped untreated waste. Unfortunately, little to no measures are taken to set up waste treatment plants in Pakistan.

Karachi has around 1,000 industrial units, forming a conglomerate of five industrial zones. From the collection of solid and liquid waste up to its systematic disposal, the municipal authorities of the metropolis have a mammoth task cut out for them.

Industrial solid and liquid sewage has a key role to play towards various types of pollution. Waste from tanneries, especially, is a source of emitting chemicals into the water. Several areas across Karachi have been spotted where factory fumes and chemical emissions are mixed into the water. Pedestrians along the Korangi Expressway have witnessed this. On a daily basis, piles of muck seep into the nearest water body located near Karachi’s Chashma Goth area.

“Despite being a metropolis, none of the industrial units in Karachi have designated effluent treatment plants, except for multinational Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) groups,” says Baqaullah Unnar, Director General Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa).

As revealed in a news story in Dawn in January this year, the government’s negligence towards marine habitats incurs exorbitant costs dedicated to vessel repair and maintenance. The key factor behind this is the continuous flow of toxic, untreated sewage that doubles the rate of metal corrosion.

The amount of plastic consumption by humans is alarming. Recently, a team of scientists in Ghent University, Belgium, calculated that shellfish lovers may be eating up to 11,000 plastic fragments yearly. A total of 30 plastic bags were found from the stomach of a whale lying on the shore of Norway in February 2017. Zoologists who studied the incident narrated that packages with printing in Danish and English were found from within the intestines of the large sea mammal. Statistics report that plastic bag waste takes as long as 450 years to decay — the longest time period taken by any substance to decompose underwater.

These statistics worsen in regard to Pakistan’s coastal waters. An estimate of 8,000 tons of solid waste enters Karachi’s harbours on a daily basis. This is usually a result of the city’s estimated population of 200 million conducting business activities day in and day out sans installation of civic infrastructure. However, these figures offer an estimate of solid waste only. What remains unquantified often is invisible liquid waste. Also, investigations carried out by the Marine Pollution Control authority have found that over 500 million gallons of raw sewage and untreated industrial waste are emptied into the Arabian Sea daily.

It is, therefore, not without cause that individuals working towards preservation of marine resources cringe at the deplorable state of Karachi’s harbours. “This is not Karachi; this is kachra [garbage] ji!” says S.M. Tariq, Managing Director at Korangi Fishing Harbour. He believes his goals might outnumber the years remaining in his tenure.

As per the initial infrastructure, the sewage pipes of the city encompassed two out of three major drainage outlets. These include Korangi Creek and Lyari River, both of which were installed via Karachi’s national drainage system. Over the years, the clogged pipelines have rendered the drainage system inadequate.

Therefore, the state of industrial function in Pakistan at present is largely static. Due to lack of awareness, impact of metal poisoning is not common knowledge. As researched by urban planner Arif Hasan, solid waste management is directly linked to air pollution as well as sewage.

Hasan asserts that the source of underwater pollution begins from untreated sewage. Contrary to several news reports claiming that Karachi has no waste treatment plants, Hasan says that, in fact, the metropolis has three main waste treatment plants. One of the key reasons why waste still remains untreated is that the sewage does not even reach those plants.

The course of waste disposal furthers the menace to marine life. “Layer after layer of sanitary waste accumulates by the shore, thereby reducing the quantity of subsistence fish catch,” elaborates Hasan, pointing out the malfunction of Karachi’s port authorities. He adds that commercial fishing still uses launches to access deep sea fish.

Generally, shallow-water fish is more contaminated than deep-sea fish because more pollutants are found by the shore than in the depths of the ocean, as Dr Nezihe Hussein, nutritionist and founder of SWOT guide (a Facebook group of food reviews), confirms.

Contrary to popular belief that seafood is a treat for the elite, one can find restaurants in Karachi that sell a helping of fish for under a thousand rupees. As a consumer though, there is nothing more enjoyable than affordable prices in a café of your choice that serves piping hot, sizzling, good quality meals. But in the plethora of restaurants that exist today, customers often overlook the fact that purchasing a serving of seafood for less than a thousand rupees can bring quite the opposite result .

“Often, the fish available in Karachi is imported and there is a high chance that it may be Pangasius — one of the poorest qualities of fish imported from Vietnam,” reveals Hussein.

Speaking of reduced impact on human wellness, consuming any poor quality marine animal is deemed just as unhealthy as consuming contaminated marine catch. The roots of such far-reaching effects of underwater pollution are found in the marine ecosystem itself. Prior to entering a marine habitat, metals such as mercury and lead, seep into the water and the soil, bit by bit, whereby the bacteria naturally convert the mercury into poisonous methyl mercury. Underwater bacteria are swallowed by various marine life such as planktons. Planktons are often the diet of smaller fish which, in turn, are eaten by larger fish. It is for this reason that mercury and lead are considered as substances that cause environmental toxicity.

Investigations carried out by the Marine Pollution Control authority have found that over 500 million gallons of raw sewage and untreated industrial waste are emptied into the Arabian Sea daily.

“Water samples from the ocean are extracted to test for nitrates, phosphates and other nutrients and contaminants,” says Abdullah Memon, a research officer at the Nutrients and Pigments Lab at National Institute of Oceanography (NIO). He elaborates his findings that sea water is mixed with dioxins, chlorinated pesticides, oil spills, lead, mercury, Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) and Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs). Therefore, bottom-dwelling fish are likely to absorb these chemicals as they are found right at the base of where the fish feed is.

The Washington State Department of Health reports this as a chain of bioaccumulation, which may have an increased impact on childbearing women. Mercury and other contaminants are likely to pass on to a developing foetus through the placenta. Children, overall, are more prone to the effects of mercury as their nervous system continues to evolve until adolescence.

“One of the foremost steps to producing healthier fish catch is clean ocean water,” says Principal Scientific Officer Dr Nuzhat Khan at NIO. She explains that aquatic cleanliness can only be ensured by studying the health, productivity and physique of the ocean.

Alterations in the natural marine ecosystems due to degradation of coral reefs, flora, fauna and mangrove depletion compromise not just the quality, but also the quantity of the catch. A hobbyist fisherman, Momin Khan, recalls his experience of fishing in the 1980s, when there were enough fish to catch even at Seaview beach. “I catch fish for leisure, but it costs me nowhere less than 2,000 to 5,000 rupees today,” he says. “The ocean had less than half of the amount of dirt and garbage back then,” he concludes.

Now, fishermen have to travel 10 to 20 nautical miles into the ocean to fish. Due to growing ocean garbage, fish is barely seen at the shore. Therefore, sailing in the ocean leads to increased overheads for fishermen, such as fuel, cold storage and labour costs. As a result, the fish that is placed on the consumer’s plate is pricier than usual. When combined with transport costs — from the harbour to the retailer — the rates further escalate, making seafood less affordable.

Karim Baksh, a fisherman in Ibrahim Hyderi, agrees with Khan, saying that oceanic health hazards are not limited to marine life. “Their effects are also translated to our health because we spend indefinite periods of time in the water away from the sun.” This causes Vitamin D deficiency among them.

Fishermen lament the increase of carbon and coal emissions from industries released into the water. To them, the ocean has become a garbage dump. Oftentimes, fishing nets not only catch fish, but also trash polluting the water.

“How much of it is toxic and how much of it is protein, we do not know. What we know is that our business gets affected,” says Baksh.

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 19th, 2018