EMA opens eco-conference

The environmental conference and exhibition, which opened yesterday at the Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence in Macoya, is also de-signed to highlight ecologically-minded Trinidad and Tobago companies and institutions which citizens may access for environmental assistance and services, according to the EMA’s assistant corporate communications officer Kirk-Jean Baptiste.

Also attending the opening day of the event was Public Utilities and Environment Minister Pennelope Beckles, and EMA chairman Dr John Agard. Beckles cut the ribbon to officially open the conference, which is part of the EMA’s ten-year anniversary celebrations.

"The people we have invited to the exhibition," said Baptiste, "are people who have environmentally savvy products, services or production in their daily course of activities. We’re also trying to educate as many students as possible. We’ve also found that people are not environmentally aware, and I don’t know if it’s because they are not reading or they just don’t care about enough environmentally savvy stuff, hence we have this exhibition opened."

Baptiste said the exhibition was free of charge to the public.

Companies and institutions attending the event were the EMA, the Institute of Marine Affairs (IMA), Forestry Division, Piranha Technology Asset Man-agement Ltd, Petrotrin, bpTT, Kaizen Environmental Services Ltd, MAI Caribbean Ltd, Earth Company Ltd, Rose Environ-mental Ltd, Sugar Cane Feeds Centre, Trinidad and Tobago Bureau of Standards (TTBS), Niherst/NGC, Waterex, Mystic Hemp, SWMCOL, Millennium Metals, Recycling Ltd, United Nations Information Centre (UNIC), Town and Country Planning Division, WASA, FCB and TTEC.