ISLAMABAD: Federal Secretary for Climate Change Arif Ahmed Khan, chairing a meeting on ‘Hazardous Waste Management for Pakistan’, has said that dangerous waste has become a major cause of increasing environmental degradation in the country.
The federal secretary said that industries, hospitals, electronic manufacturing companies and agriculture sector generate enormous waste, which is discarded without proper management, and hence continues to damage environment, particularly water and air in the country.
He highlighted that it was deeply upsetting that practically nothing was being done anywhere in the country as far as proper and environmental-friendly management of any kind of waste was concerned. Khan said that hospital waste had become a grave threat to the environment, most of which was being disposed of improperly. He pledged not to spare any hospital found involved in discarding waste haphazardly and without proper management. He warned of initiating legal proceedings against the hospitals which were not incinerating the waste material properly.
Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency Islamabad Director General Khursheed Ahmed informed the meeting that at present there are around 300 hospitals of varying sizes in Islamabad, most of which are not incinerating the hospital waste in a scientific and environment-friendly manner. “There is also a need for setting standards for incineration process, for most of the existing waste incineration processes in hospitals are below standard,” he pointed out.
Group Managing Director of Malaysia-based international company ‘Pollution Engineerings’, Tony YC Liew, was also present at the meeting who showed interest in installing hazardous waste disposal facilities in different cities of Pakistan, particularly in Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and Islamabad on ‘build, operate and own’ basis.
Director General (Environment &Climate Change) at the Ministry of Climate Change, Sajjad Ahmed Bhutta, pressed on the need for making incineration a national policy option, engaging all provincial environmental protection agencies (EPAs) in this regard, and setting of quality standards for waste-related technology.
