KUCHING: Palm oil manufacturers are reminded to stick to environmental laws to achieve 100 percent compliance during their licensing period.
State Department of Environment (DoE) director John Rampai said more emphasis should be given to ensure environmental pollution and potential health issues to humans can be curbed.
“The context of environmental management through the hierarchy of pollution prevention at the source level is the best control method.
“This is a big role and responsibility of industry players who are at the forefront of environmental management in controlling, managing and ensuring sustainable and holistic environmental management,” he said.
John said this in his speech at the Empowerment Seminar for Compliance with the Environmental Quality Act 1974 and handing over of palm oil mill licensing 2023/2024 in conjunction with World Environment Day at a hotel here, today.
He said in Sarawak, there are 86 palm oil factories that process crude palm oil.
Of the figure, 18 factories are in Kuching, Miri (27), Sibu (22) and Bintulu (19).
He said the industry is fully responsible for implementing self-enforcement with the guidance that has been provided by the DoE that is able to continuously produce environmental excellence.
Touching on the seminar, he said it is aimed at discussing and guiding the new culture that DoE wants to foster so that it becomes a practice among regulated communities.
“This culture is expected to produce continuous compliance and excellence in environmental management, specifically among industry players themselves.
“The culture that we want to implement is a culture of concern for the environment, where environmental factors are taken into account in every stage of the decision-making process,” he added.
Among the presentations from DoE officials are related to the way forward for the Environmental Quality Regulations (Designated Premises) (Crude Palm Oil) 1977, Enforcement Empowerment for palm oil mills as well as Competent Person and National Registry of Certified Environmental Professionals Guidelines 2014.
In addition, there are also presentations related to technology and methods of water and air pollution control.
A total of 250 participants are attending the seminar, featuring 10 exhibitors from environmental consulting firms.
