According to the report, following journalists’ accounts of open-air gold refining, the Environment Ministry instructed Preah Sihanouk environmental officers to summon the Naak Meas Siang Huol jewellery and gold business on March 16 and require an immediate end to open-air refining by burning.
The ministry regarded the practice, even on privately owned land, as a source of poorer air quality and public-health risk. The report says the business representative agreed to measures preventing pollution and harm to residents, especially workers directly carrying out the process.
The ministry continued calling on jewellery businesses to stop open-air refining and on the public to avoid burning grassland, agricultural residues, forest-clearing material, stubble, rubbish, solid waste and plastics in the open.
It also urged local administrations to instruct companies, factories and workshops not to burn fabric scraps and industrial waste in boilers, heating furnaces or brick kilns without appropriate pollution treatment and reduction systems, and to stop waste burning inside or outside premises and in public places to reduce particulate and air pollution.
By Nget Pisant.
