'New approach needed to eliminate waste'

'New approach needed to eliminate waste'

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian industry needs to adopt new
approaches to manufacture if it is to effectively cut pollution
and industrial waste, Minister for Environment Sarwono
Kusumaatmadja said yesterday.

Sarwono said that without new ways of thinking about
manufacturing, industrial waste problems would remain "despite
greatly improved environmental management by local industries".

"With present waste management approaches, the amount of waste
will keep increasing no matter how well the industries handle the
problem," he said.

"A breakthrough in thinking is needed, because
industrialization can't be stopped," Sarwono said.

Sarwono, speaking at a press conference on the upcoming third
International Conference on Zero Emissions, said an example of
this was the Zero Emissions Research Initiative (ZERI) concept.

He said he has "a gut feeling" that the ZERI, which was
developed by the United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo in 1994
"will be a trend" in the next five or ten years.

"If industry followed the ZERI approach, waste could be
reduced to zero, productivity increased, products diversified,
and employment created," Sarwono said.

Sarwono said that ZERI offered two approaches (one for use
with the "traditional" appropriate technology and the other with
"modern" technology.

He said Indonesia already used the first approach in Long-Yam
fishing and farming industries in West Java, in which no
industrial waste has gone unused.

"If this kind farming activity joins the Proper program, it
could have got the Gold label," Sarwono joked, referring to
Proper Prokasih or the program for pollution control, evaluation
and rating, evaluates the quality of waste water from a factory
discharged into rivers.

Director of ZERI Gunter Pauli, speaking after the minister,
said that most of the time when he meets businessmen to talk
about ZERI concept most of them said it was impossible to cut
waste to zero.

"Or even if it is possible, they would say it is expensive. It
makes no sense to me," he said, adding that the ZERI represents a
shift in the concept of industries' "linear models" in which
waste are considered normal to integrated systems in which
everything has its use.

Gunter said Malaysia's oil palm industry Golden Hope
Plantations Berhad had worked towards "zero emissions," by
utilizing all the palm tree instead of "just using eight percent
of the tree to produce palm oil."

The industry has been very profitable making use of only eight
percent of the palm tree.

"Golden Hope is one of the most successful industrial
companies to maximize the utilization of the biomass of the palm
tree," he said.

Gunter said ZERI is not a concept of pollution control but
rather a practical approach to satisfy mankind's needs in a more
environmentally sensitive manner, by applying science and
technology and involving government, business and academy.

The third international conference on zero emissions will be
held here from June 5 to 7. About 450 delegates -- including
experts, industrialists and scientists -- from home and abroad
will take part in the conference. (08)