The Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning (DEA&DP) launched its Integrated Pollutant and Waste Information System (IPWIS) on Thursday, 15 June2006 at the Lord Charles Hotel in Somerset West. The launch was the culmination of the development of the IPWIS and supporting guidelines that would enable municipalities, business and industry to report on the quantities of waste generated, stored, transported and disposed and on certain priority pollutants emitted. The system will also afford the general public to access information from the system and to lodge complaints on suspected waste and pollution transgressions.

During his keynote address, Theo Tolmay, Head of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Development emphasized the importance of a system that would assist the department in delivering an effective and efficient environmental service to the public through the use of information technology and communication (ITC). This information entered onto the system and analysed would be crucial for the implementation of pollution and waste reduction measures. As more accurate data would be more frequently reported it will assist municipalities and industry in waste and pollution management planning.

Tolmay also mentioned that whereas status quo studies that have previously been commissioned on Climate Change, general and hazardous waste and chemicals management afforded the Department a snapshot of the state of the environment at a given point in time, the more accurate and more regular reporting of data would result in a more accurate and continuous assessment of the state of waste and pollution management in the Province.

Interventions to improve environment performance of waste and polluting facilities and the management of the environment and impacts on human health would be readily facilitated as a result of having more frequent up-to-date information at our disposal. Furthermore, the IPWIS would greatly assist municipalities, the provincial Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning and the national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism in waste and pollution management planning, policy-making, compliance monitoring, enforcement, reporting and decision-making.

It will also form the function of a waste manifest system as it will afford the DEA&DP to ability to track health care waste from generation through to final disposal, which will support the implementation of the Health Care Waste Management legislation due for promulgation later this year.

The launch also afforded stakeholders an opportunity to view IPWIS in action and to familiarize themselves with some of the functionalities of the system. The Department also used this event as a platform to thank participants for their efforts towards realising the first phase of the IPWIS project in them partaking in the pilot reporting exercise.

The IPWIS will now enter a pilot testing phase with external stakeholders where after it will be a fully accessible to the public and form part of the infrastructure to give effect to e-Governance. It would then be up to various stakeholders to play their part in ensuring that correct information is filtered through to the Department. The way information is utilized, package and accessed then becomes a valuable tool to drive innovative interventions and transparent decisive decision making in pollution and waste management that would move our society on the sustainable development pathway.

Enquiries:

Mr. Gottlieb Arendse
Director: Pollution and Waste Management
Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning
Tel: 021 483 5109 or 021 483 3185
gmarends@pgwc.gov.za