Gold processing from sludge leaves residents breathing polluted air in Coimbatore

Workers who filter traces of gold from sludge, use burning as part of the process, and residents in the neighbourhood have complained that the noxious smoke could pose a health threat

Nearly 20 families living on the side of a drainage channel that carries releases from Coimbatore Corporation’s sewage treatment plant at Ukkadam have a rare livelihood – filtering traces of gold from the sludge. Waste water generated from hundreds of jewellery manufacturing units in the city are the source of gold particles in the sewage. Though these families have been into this job for several years now, the crude method of processing gold from the sludge is now a cause of concern for adjacent residential areas -- Anbu Nagar, Rose Park, Rose Avenue, Reshma Garden, Nila Garden and N.S. Park to name a few. The gold filtering process involves burning of dry cakes made out of the sludge from the sewage which looks similar to cow dung cakes. While the workers claim that they burn the cakes with coconut husks and waste materials, residents suspect that they might be adding some chemical agent to boost the burning of the sludge cakes to break into fine dust.