Rangpur, July 10 -- The Department of Environment (DoE) has intensified enforcement alongside public awareness efforts to protect the environment, conducting 24 drives in Rangpur over the past seven months and collecting fines totaling Tk 24 lakh.

According to the DoE, the drives were carried out between December last year and June this year against illegal brick kilns, the use of banned polythene bags, noise pollution, illegal waste tyre pyrolysis plants and facilities producing lead by burning used batteries.

According to the Department of Environment, mobile courts conducted drives against 11 illegal brick kilns over the past seven months, fining them Tk 21.5 lakh, disconnecting electricity to four kilns and demolishing their chimney...