Asian Journal of Social Science Studies; Vol. 6, No. 4; 2021 ISSN 2424-8517 E-ISSN 2424-9041 Published by July Press 1 Perception of Local People Towards Tannery Industrial Waste: A Cross-Sectional Study on Hazaribagh Areas of Dhaka City Amzad Hossain 1 , Serajum Munira 2,3 & Meherun Nessa 4 1 Department of Sociology, Government Edward College, National University, Bangladesh 2 Liton Baron Sikder, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Islamic University, Kushtia, Bangladesh 3 Department of English, Green University of Bangladesh, Bangladesh 4 Department of Language (English), Shere-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh Correspondence: Md. Amzad Hossain, Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Government Edward College, National University, Pabna, Bangladesh. Received: March 23, 2021 Accepted: April 30, 2021 Online Published: November 18, 2021 doi:10.20849/ajsss.v6i4.950 URL: https://doi.org/10.20849/ajsss.v6i4.950 Abstract Though tannery industries such as RMG and pharmaceuticals have played a significant part in the country's economic sectors, they have had a serious detrimental impact on tannery workers and the Dhaka metropolitan environment. The major objective of the study was to measure the association between socio-demographic factors and perceptions of local people towards tannery industrial wastes. Following a simple random sampling technique, this study chose 384 respondents from the study area. The findings of the study reveal that a whopping 95% of respondents reported that tannery industrial wastes have serious effects on the environment in the study area. Again, the bivariate result of the study indicates that male, married respondents, educated respondents, and respondents with higher income are more likely to say that tannery waste is harmful to local people while male & age of the respondents, marital status, Muslim religion, and higher-income group socio-demographic variables are significantly associated with tannery industrial waste handling is highly risky. Moreover, sex, marital status, religion, and higher-income group are also found as significant indicators for creating disease by tannery industrial waste as well as sex, age and income have been found as the predictor for Tannery industrial waste segregation are essential.In conclusion, this study mainly emphasizes tannery industrial waste on the workers' health problems and lifestyles, furthermore, the findings also showed the environmental awareness & perceptions of local people caused by the hazardous tannery waste. Keywords: tannery waste, health hazards, workers health risk, environment pollution, common disease 1. Background of the Study By dumping liquid effluents and solid wastes directly into low-lying areas without sufficient treatment, the leather industry poses a serious environmental concern. Industrial wastes are major polluters in all settings and must be treated on-site before being discharged into the sewer system (Emongor et al., 2005). Hazaribagh is the lifeline of Dhaka city, as shown on the map, where the tanning industry began in 1960. Waste is generated by all sections of society, including agriculture, industry, mining, construction, consumers, energy, and transportation. Because different industrial processes generate different types of waste, the quantity of toxicity of waste emitted from industrial operations varies from one industrial process to the next. Every day, the tanneries dump 22,000 liters of toxic waste into Buriganga, containing cancer-causing chromium, according to the Ministry of Environment (Barton, 2011). In the future, there will be a significant number of deaths in this location, according to the expert. However, as in every developing country, the economy takes precedence over the environment. The situation is deteriorating due to a lack of improvement in the wastewater treatment and management system, as well as the formulation and effective execution of policies aimed at preserving and regenerating the environment, as well as insufficient sewerage and infrastructure facilities (Banani Bisws and Takeshi Hamada) (2012). The leather industry contributes to one of the world's most serious industrial pollution problems (M.Jatavathu etl 2011). The wastewater from these industries contains a variety of harmful compounds such as lime, sodium, sulphide salts, and solvents, which are all utilized extensively in the pre-tanning stages of leather manufacturing.