The environmental consultancy firm which studied the impact of Malaysia's first mega-incinerator project sited in Broga is unqualified to conduct the technical assessment on the proposed Japanese technology, said a German expert.

Retired chemist Ingo Godeke said the government-appointed consultant - Perunding Utama Sdn Bhd (PU) - failed to provide a comprehensive assessment on the technology as well as the environmental, social and health impact of the RM1.5 billion project.

Godeke is the consultant of the Semenyih/Broga No Incinerator pro tem committee, which comprises residents who are opposed to the project.

In an email communique, he said the study failed to calculate the impact of emissions from the plant as required in the terms of reference (TOR) issued by the Department of Environment (DOE). The EIA study is supposed to be based on the TOR.

"The government should demand for a new EIA with a consultant who has sufficient technical background and able to do simple calculations.

"The technical part of the EIA study shows an extreme lack of technical know-how on the part of the consultant," he claimed.

Nothing concrete

Godeke said except for some verbal description of the pollutants and the efficiency of some of the equipment, there were "no concrete values or numbers" mentioned to show the extent of implications.

"Without such crucial details, the environmental impact calculation is baseless. In fact, some of the findings are completely wrong based on experiences with existing and comparable facilities," he added.

Godeke has appeared in several incinerator-related court cases in Germany offering technical advice involving different proposed technologies.

In February, Japan's Ebara Corporation won the contract to design and build the1,500-tonne Broga plant which the government expects to commission in 2007, sparking off a major public protest.

The EIA study, released late August after being delayed since May, is currently up for public comments. Deadline for submission of written comments is Oct 14.

Failed system

According to Godeke, the incineration system proposed by Ebara was a variation derived from a failed system provided by another company in Europe, particularly the combustion details.

He said due to the mixed nature of household waste comprising organic and inorganic materials, the burning process would not be in a stable condition, resulting in environmental pollution.

On plant safety and emergency response shutdowns, he said the EIA was misleading as it only mentions a few minor accident scenarios when "there are more harmful situations" which, he said, should have been anticipated in the study.

He said many inner parts of the furnace were exposed to extremely high temperatures and needed to be replaced once or twice a year, besides being monitored by a damage-control system.

"Similar problems with heat-affected inner surfaces caused an emergency shutdown at one such plant at Karlsruhe near here in December 1999.

"Accidents in parts of the other equipment, such as metal pipes and surfaces of heat boilers which can cause leakages and steam explosion, are also not mentioned in the study. This could lead to the loss of workers' lives," he warned.

'Promotional lie'

Noting the discrepancy in the combustion figures as stated in the TOR and that found in the EIA study, he said the temperature difference would lead to different conditions which were not calculated by PU.

"The boiler temperature range at the proposed plant is the most conducive range for dioxin formation, and none of the bag-filters are capable of stopping its release into the atmosphere," he said, describing PU's technical assessment as "a promotional lie".

Godeke also said Ebara's technology - fluidised-bed gasification and ash-melting - produced large amounts of fly-ash compared to standard incinerators.

Fly-ash and bottom-ash are both highly toxic dust generated by the burning of waste and are categorised as hazardous waste. They have to be handled the same way as nuclear waste.

Noting another temperature disparity in the cooling process, he was surprised that PU was ignorant or had simply failed to mention a "well-known fact for over 20 years".

Even the slaked-lime filter system, designed to prevent the flue gas (almost-invisible smoke coupled with pollutants) from being released into the air, was a bad choice as the filters get blocked during operations.

"In Europe, such filter systems are not accepted to meet the technical standard for flue gas cleaning.

"Such cheap and inefficient filters are not used in municipal solid waste incinerators in Germany where the environmental protection standards are very strict," he said.

He added that the PU study also failed to calculate ammonia levels that will be released together with the flue gas through the stack.

More expensive

Godeke also stressed that the hazardous waste generated by the plant, in the form of fly- and bottom-ash, slaked-lime droppings from the filters as well as glass, pebbles and metals that are not burnt, cannot be stored in a sanitary landfill.

"In Europe and many developed countries, these substances come under hazardous waste regulations," he said, concerned over the thousands of tonnes of such material to be buried in a sanitary landfill as proposed.

In concluding his technical evaluation, he estimated the Broga plant to cost 4.5 times more than a "modern, alternative and environment-saving" waste management system comprising separation, recovery and anaerobic digestion.

Waste separation, he said, produces no hazardous material whereas the incinerator plant is expected to produce 25,500 tonnes of hazardous substance a year, in addition to 25,900 tonnes of slag or ash headed for a nearby sanitary landfill already proposed by the government.

Three other scientists - Brenda Platt, from US-based Institute of Local Self Reliance, Ralph Ryder from UK-based Communities Against Toxics and Dr Alex Cherp from Hungary's Central European University - are also providing expert analysis on the EIA study.