TEHRAN — Consistent monitoring of pollutant industries by the most modern standards of the day is on top of the agenda, Masoumeh Ebtekar, the chief of the Department of Environment, said on Saturday.

Ebtekar made the announcement in a press conference on the importance of monitoring environmental pollutants.
Mentioning the recent memorandum of understanding signed between Iran and France, Ebtekar noted that one of the main subjects of the agreement revolves around cooperation on monitoring pollutants and laboratories which are held accountable.

“For instance, we have signed another memorandum of understanding with Italy aiming at controlling industrial pollutants,” she added.

She additionally stated that all industries which fail to reduce their environmental footprints are charged with ecological taxation. The one percent ecotax will be allocated to the environmental activities of the DoE.

Self-declaration of the amount of pollutant the industries release counts as an important factor in minimizing the air pollution, she said.

On the subject of waste-to-energy incinerators Ebtekar highlighted that “the technology is already in use in Iran but what matters most is to make it as ecofriendly as possible and to do so we need help from other countries such as France.”

******* Self-declaration 63% up among pollutant industries

The deputy chief of Department of Environment, Sa’eed Motesaddi announced that the regular monitoring of the industries and their self-declaration have risen to 72 and 63 percent respectively.

It is important to increase the number of the industries who report the amount of pollutants they produce, he said adding that, as adapted by the rules all pollutant industries are bound to self-declare the amount of the pollutants they release.

“Considering the significance of the monitoring and self-declaration,” he pointed, “laboratories responsible for running tests on the pollutants are integral to the department of environment.”

MQ/MG