Brunei must cut waste output

Hj Mohd Rozan Dato Paduka Hj Mohd Yunus (R), Permanent Secretary (Administration and Finance) at the Ministry of Development officially handing over recycle bins to the Business School. Picture: Courtesy of the Business School

DUE to limited land area, Brunei needs to take waste reduction seriously as the country's waste production is higher than other countries in the region.

Hj Mohd Rozan Dato Paduka Hj Yunus, Permanent Secretary for Administration and Finance at the Ministry of Development (MoD), emphasised this in his opening speech at yesterday's launch of the Business School's "3R's programme"of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

The programme launched by the Department of Environment, Parks and Recreation (Jastre) aimed to raise awareness on the importance of orderly waste management and recycling.

In his opening speech, Hj Mohd Rozan cited a 2005 study by Jastre that Bruneians on average produce 1.4 kgs of waste a day.

In contrast, many countries within the region only produce one kilogramme or less of waste daily.

Some of these countries have even taken waste management to a new level unobserved by Brunei. The countries that produce less waste than Brunei actually commit to recycling 10 to 20 per cent of their total waste disposal, whereas Brunei's waste collected for recycling is estimated at less than five per cent each year.

He added that due to the country's limited land area, the people need to take waste minimisation seriously.

To date, 70 per cent of the nation's total waste is actually able to be recycled as 36 per cent is organic, 18 per cent paper and 16 per cent plastic, the permanent secretary said.

He then warned those present of the hazards of disorderly waste, noting that plastic takes years to breakdown and could produce toxic substances, while organic food waste when decomposing lets off methane, a greenhouse gas widely accused of catalysing global warming.

Spearheading the awareness campaign, MoD through Jastre has vowed to "continue to implement strategies and programmes on 'waste minimisation' to achieve the waste production level of 'one kilogramme per person per day'," said Hj Mohd Rozan.

The focus of such programmes will be activity-based to garner as much participation and involvement as possible to make a population practising the three R's a reality.

The green initiative is part of a unit for final year students taking Business and Finance and Secretarial Studies programmes at the Business School.

Yesterday's activity was part of the social responsibility unit, which will teach the students the social issues that businesses might address. It was also hosted in a lead up to the students' "main event", which would take the form of a "Green Carnival" to be held on October 30 and 31.