Home ›› 13 Feb 2023 ›› News
One in every four persons is suffering from eye fatigue and eye strain in Dhaka due to visual pollution while children are the worst victims, says a recent study.
Around 4.26 million, or 24.37 per cent, of the Dhaka dwellers aged between 10 and 59 suffer from eye fatigue due to less discussed visual pollution.
Moreover, every year, an estimated 2,70,000 children in Dhaka suffer from eye fatigue and severe headaches.
Visual pollution includes billboards, cables, wires, power poles, garbage or rubbish dumps, neon signs, excessive traffic signs, decaying structures, stacked-high construction materials, mobile screens, roadside waste, television, and graffiti.
The study report, titled “Visual Pollution in The City of Dhaka: A Public Health, Environment and Traffic Distraction” conducted by the Environment and Social Development Organisation (ESDO), was unveiled at ESDO office in the capital on Sunday.
The study was conducted between June 2021 and June 2022 at several locations around Dhaka city such as eye hospitals, construction sites, schools, colleges, universities, and office premises.
They interviewed patients of eye hospitals, school-going children, students of schools and colleges, construction workers, drivers, and doctors.
According to the National Blindness and Low Vision Survey of Bangladesh, 21.6 per cent of adults have low vision. But, according to the study, it has increased by 60 per cent in 2022. Visual pollution by billboards has been identified as one of the top reasons behind road accidents, alongside overtaking, reckless driving, and intoxicated driving.
Billboards are a strong element of visual pollution, which has increased rapidly in the last seven years. The number of billboards reached 13,997 in 2022 from 4,522 in 2015, increasing by 210 per cent in seven years.
The number of billboards considered in the study is permitted by the city corporations. The number of non-permitted and unplanned billboards is uncountable. And these non–permitted billboards, set up at the traffic intersections, create obstacles for drivers to see the other side of the road causing road accidents, said Shahriar Hossain, the team leader of the study.
As a result, road accidents are also increasing. Road accidents killed 5,227 people in 2019 in the country which increased to 6,284 in 2021. And till June 2022, 8,800 people died in road accidents in six months, the report said.
