KUCHING: Compliance with environmental law should be emphasised to ensure incidents of pollution and potential health issues can be prevented.
Department of Environment (DOE) Sarawak principal senior director Amirul Aripin said this when officiating at the Complying with Environment Policies and Procedures seminar here yesterday.
“The best control method for environmental management is to prevent pollution at the root cause.
“Thus, it is your role and responsibility as industry players at the forefront of environmental management to control, manage and ensure sustainable and holistic environmental management,” he said.
Malaysia had been encouraging the principle of “Industrial Ecology” to reduce pollution and waste as well as to maintain the economy and ensure a viable business environment, preserving the environment and improving the quality of community wellbeing by reusing waste as a sustainable resource, he said.
“This is the concept of ‘One industry’s waste is another’s feedstock’ where we transform the waste into something valuable instead of just disposing of it after a one-time use,” he commented.
“That is also why we have Scheduled Waste management which is based on the ‘Cradle to cradle’ principle that covers the 4R – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recover – rather than disposing of waste to the dumping site,” he added.
Some 350 participants from various industries statewide attended the seminar organised by DOE Sarawak in collaboration with Sports and Welfare Club of DOE Sarawak (Kessar) in conjunction with Earth Day.
The seminar is an initiative by the DOE to give an exposure and engage with industry players, especially in Sarawak, on understanding the directions of DOE to implement enforcement activities in the industries through the Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulations 2005.
Apart from that, 10 exhibition booths were featured at the seminar.
Also present at the event were Kessar deputy chairman Shirley Alik and DOE Sarawak senior control officer Zaharizam Johny.
