CAP: Auditor-general should denounce incinerators
The Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) says that the Auditor-General's Report 2012 has vindicated its objections to incinerators made years ago, after the report found several problems with the projects.
The Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) says that the Auditor-General's Report 2012 has vindicated its objections to incinerators made years ago, after the report found several problems with the projects.
In a statement today, CAP president SM Mohamed Idris (right) said the auditor-general should have gone a step further by denouncing waste disposal through incineration so that the government would drop the idea completely.
"In view of our local conditions, the alternative waste model posing minimal impact to the environment should be towards a zero waste approach, promoting sustainable discard management systems and clean production," he said.
The auditor-general's report says that incinerators in Pulau Langkawi, Pulau Pangkor, Pulau Tioman and Cameron Highlands had been plagued with delays and only the one in Pulau Tioman is in operation.
"The decision to build four incinerator plants simultaneously at four locations ... even as the technology is quite new and untested, have resulted in delays," the report says.
Mohamed says the waste in these areas are mostly organic should have been made into compost, as other countries have done despite challenging island or highland geography.
He said that in 2009, it had commented on the Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA) the four incinerator projects.
It was found in the report, he said, that the proposed incinerator was based on laboratory experiments, is unproven in large-scale, real-world studies and lacked independent studies to verify its safety.
He also lamented that CAP's concerns over the lack of data on the incinerator's pollution control system at the time were ignored.
"CAP also pointed out that neither high temperatures nor pollution control equipment can make incinerators safe.
"Pollution control equipment does not eliminate pollution. It mostly traps it and concentrates pollutants shifting most, but not all of the pollution from the exhaust gas to other environmental media," he added.
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CAP: Auditor-general should denounce incinerators
