MPOB Commitment Towards Clean Air Regulatory Compliance
Rohaya Mohamed Halim* and Astimar Abdul Aziz*The Department of Environment (DOE) has gazetted a new Environment Quality Act (Clean Air) Regulation on 4 June 2014 covering various sectors of industries. This new regulation has direct impact on palm oil mills, particularly under the clause which requires particulate matter (PM) emission level to be less than 150 mg m-3. While many mills are still struggling to meet the current emission level of 400 mg m-3 consistently, this new regulation becomes a great challenge to those mills processing biomass (100% fibre and shell) as boiler fuel instead of using non-renewable energy sources. The period for palm oil mills to comply with the new regulation mandate is approaching, which is 3 June 2019. However, air pollution control systems (APCS), such as wet scrubber, bag filter, electro static precipitator (ESP) and multi cyclone system (Vorsep), which claimed to be capable of treating the particulate emission have yet to be verified and those systems are very subjective to different palm oil mill processing. Starting from 2014, MPOB has been actively communicating and engaging with DOE in resolving all environmental issues which covered survey, technology verification and negotiation. In relation to clean air regulation, MPOB has negotiated with DOE in revising the regulations implementation. This article highlights the effort and commitment by MPOB towards clean air regulatory compliance.
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