7.3.2  Industry

Pollution from the industrial sector in Ethiopia has been on the rise, posing a serious problem to the environment. Many industrial processes produce polluting waste substances that are discharged to the environment, frequently through chimneys (to the air) or through pipes (to surface water) (Figure 7.6). Among the most polluting industries are food processing, tanneries and textiles with processing plants and factories that produce liquid effluents which are discharged into rivers, often without treatment (Ademe and Alemayehu, 2014; Wosnie and Wondie, 2014). In practice, rivers frequently receive polluting discharges from many different sources all at the same time. The Little Akaki River in Addis Ababa, for example, is polluted by several different industrial sources as well as by domestic wastes (Tegegn, 2012).

Figure 7.6  Air pollution from an industrial source.