My workplace is a multinational cement factory located on the banks of a river, where hundreds of tons of clinker come and go every day. Although it looks like a bustling environment from the outside, the invisible monster here is air pollution. Every day when the clinker is unloaded from the huge ships and sent through the belt to the storage, a kind of white smoke wafts into the air. While it may seem like ordinary dust at first glance, its true horror is understood when one stands in this smoke for a few moments—inhaling causes chest heaviness, burning eyes, and at one point it becomes a death trap for asthmatics.
Not only in the workplace, but also the lives of the residents of the surrounding area are getting poisoned. This dust is so fine that closing the windows and doors cannot save the house. When you wake up in the morning, you can see a layer of white dust on the furniture, clinker on the leaves of the trees in such a way that it looks like someone has put a thin layer of cement on nature! The saddest part is that those who have lived in this area for a long time seem to have somehow learned to adapt to this pollution - not just adapted, but told.
To solve this problem the company installed three dust collectors, which are used to absorb clinker from the air. This improved the situation somewhat, but did not completely solve the problem. Because if the air flow is high, it becomes virtually impossible to control the dust. However, the company has recently taken up some new initiatives, including modern clinker storage systems, which will reduce the amount of dust in the air. Previously, clinker was kept in open environment, resulting in dust in the air. Now the company has taken up plans to build clinker storage silos, which will be completely enclosed and reduce the chances of dust spillage.
Initiatives have also been taken to change the loading process of clinker from ships. Previously, clinker was dropped directly into open belts, resulting in rapid dispersion of dust. A closed transportation system is now being used, where clinker will be sent directly to warehouses through pipelines, reducing the chance of airborne dust.
Besides, the company has now introduced an automatic water spray system for dust control, which tries to reduce clinker dust by sprinkling water at regular intervals. In particular, when the clinker is transported on the belt, it is introduced. This greatly increases the weight of the dust, so it cannot be easily dispersed in the air. Besides, better quality air filtering masks are being provided to the workers to reduce respiratory problems. Also, regular health check-ups and medical check-ups have been arranged at workplaces, so that those suffering from air pollution get timely treatment.
To protect the environment, the company is now planting more trees around the factories, so that the plants can purify the air to some extent. But no matter how effective these initiatives are, will they completely solve the problem? The fact is, these measures will reduce the level of pollution to some extent, but ensuring a completely pollution-free environment is still challenging.
In my view, the most effective solution would be to install more advanced dust collectors, introduce fully closed transportation and storage systems, and local administration intervention and enforcement of strict environmental laws. But the sad thing is, until companies come under government pressure, they will only take minimal initiatives, not fully address the problem.
I am a victim of this pollution myself and experience it daily. Companies have been told this many times, but for big corporate organizations, human issues are not as important as their profits. Seeing this situation, sometimes it seems that workers like us are just moving machines, our pain, our difficulties, everything is invisible.