The Ministry of Climate Change in
coordination with donor organizations, working on preservation of environment,
organised a Donors' Round-table Meeting on Environmentally Sound Management of
Waste from Ship Dismantling and other Industries in Pakistan here at a local
hotel, says a press release.
The roundtable was aimed to highlight the
Government of Pakistan commitment to its national and international obligations
towards the conservation and preservation of environment for the sake of
country’s existing and future generations.
The Ministry of Climate Change is
coordinating with donor organisations across the world and taking various
initiatives for the protection of environment over the past two decades and is
a party of a number of international Conventions and Protocols on various
environmental issues especially hazardous chemicals and wastes which include
Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Vienna Conventions and Montreal Protocol.
It was also emphasised to enhance the
development of safe and environmentally sound ship recycling in the country
with an aim to improve the standards and sustainability of the ship breaking
industry.
It was envisaged that a common hazardous
waste treatment, storage and disposal facility to be established for the Gadani
hub area as the common centralized facility for providing environment utility
services to the Gadani yards as well as to hub industries for disposing of
their hazardous wastes in a safe and environmentally sustainable manner.
Syed Abu Ahmad Akif, Secretary, Ministry of
Climate Change, Iftikhar-ul- Hassan Shah Gilani, Joint Secretary, Ministry of
Climate Change, Ms. Ingrid Christensen, Country Director, ILO, Ms. Susan
Wingfield, Progrmme Officer, UNEP Secretariat of Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm
Conventions, Geneva, Switzerland, Sajjad Ahmed Bhutta, Secretary Ministry of
Environment, Government of Balochistan, Dr. Zaigham Abbas, Deputy Director
(Chemical) Ministry of Climate Change, the representatives from different
government and international organisations participated in the workshop and
shared their recommendations to improve the sector.
Syed Abu Ahmad Akif, Secretary, Ministry of
Climate Change, said that there are different perceptions about the ship
breaking industry but we hope that future will be better than today. It is the
ultimate responsibility of the ship breaking industry to adopt safe and
sustainable standards.
He warned that if protective measures have
not been taken, the waste would drastically increase to over 122, 000 metric
ton in coming ten years.
In welcome address, Joint Secretary, Ministry
of Climate Change, said MOCC is determined to protect the environment and keep
its coordination with relevant organisations across the globe to clean the
marine and aquatic life from hazardous effects.
Sajjad Ahmed Bhutta, Secretary Ministry of
Environment, Government of Balochistan, said that Gadani ship-breaking yard is
the world's third largest ship breaking yard, located in Gadani, Balochistan.
The standard waste management and recycling would strengthen the industry in
Pakistan.
Susan Wingfield, Programme Officer, UNEP
Secretariat of Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions, Geneva, Switzerland,
said that the coordinated efforts are needed to address the issues of
ship-breaking, because they are impacting the beauty of the Earth and directly
on health of the human beings.
Dr. Zaigham Abbas, Deputy Director (Chemical)
Ministry of Climate Change said that, there is a need of a treatment, storage
and disposal facility on how it intends to enforce the usage of its future and
talked about the resources required for the this particular cause.
The workshop provided an opportunity to the
participants to re-strategize their working patterns and keep into
consideration the impact of hazardous impacts.
Source:
the news. 19 December 2016
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