In response to Dr Wong Ruen Yuan’s opinion that incineration has more benefits than drawbacks, KL Tak Nak Insinerator (KTI) decided to write an opinion piece to present our arguments and reasons for objecting to incinerators.

Malaysia is a developing country with a 29 million population and a US$10,000 income per capita. The fast growing urban population has increased municipal waste significantly which causes the management of municipal waste to be a problem for the municipal authorities. Generally, this type of middle-income country is an attractive target for international incinerator consortium lobbyists.

Unfortunately, the Malaysia government is likely to fall prey to these lobbyists by selecting a thermal treatment incinerator technology for a proposed 1,000-tonne waste to energy plant in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The other alternative and more sustainable waste treatment methods will likely be ignored or passed over.

Incinerators in Malaysia

Almost 10 years ago, in 2003, Malaysia awarded a contract to Japanese company - Ebara Corporation - to build the very first mega incinerator in Semenyih which is located 50km away from Kuala Lumpur.

The proposed incinerator had a capacity of 1,200 tonnes per day and priced at RM1.5 billion. But the Malaysian government failed to convince the local residents to accept the proposal due to environmental concerns.

This project which was awarded to Ebara Corporation was planned in a water catchment area. The Malaysian Department of Environment (DOE) approved the project on the grounds that the concerns of the residents were unwarranted and not valid.

However, the local residents managed getting a temporary court injunction to halt the project due to procedural reasons, i.e. the authority did not consult the local residents and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was not carried out. The project was eventually cancelled in 2006 due to various reasons including the resistance displayed by the local residents and the prohibitive cost of the proposed incinerator.

Nevertheless, the Malaysian government managed to build four small-scale incinerators in remote areas with capacities ranging from 15 tonnes to 100 tonnes per day without encountering significant resistance. Despite the operator’s claims that the incinerators were safe and in good condition, an official audit report revealed that the operation of these incinerators were problematic.

The audit report said RM199 million was spent on the construction of four incinerators by the National Solid Waste Management Department over the last four years (2008-2012), but there was no expertise to operate these plants effectively after they were built.

In addition, the audit report concluded that the major problems faced by the four incinerators were insufficient expertise, failure to comply with the Environmental Impact Assessment criteria, the incineration temperature was lower than 850 Celsius degree, and the operator was incompetent and shouldn’t be awarded with another contract (Auditor-General’s Report 2012, pp. 327-355).

Not having a good maintenance culture

Both cases clearly show the poor maintenance culture and low compliance with environmental regulations are normal in Malaysia. There is another case showing the incompetency of the local authorities in handling waste management.

On Dec 21, 2013, an operator of Kuala Lumpur’s solid waste transfer station shut its gates which resulted in an emergency shutdown and dozens of rubbish collectors queuing up outside the station. The outraged rubbish collectors disposed their rubbish along a 2km stretch road outside the station when they realised the authorities had no intention of solving the problem.

The nation was embarrassed badly when almost all major mainstream media carried the incident in their headline news.

The operator, Umpan Jaya Ltd, is a company formed and owned by a senior local ruling party Umno leader. Having failed to address numerous management and maintenance problems resulted in four solid waste compressors and disposal trucks breaking down. The municipal authority knew this from the very beginning and gave a hand to assist it.

But the incompetency of Umpan Jaya nullified the assistance given by the authorities and inevitably led to the occurrence of the Dec 21 incident.

The authorities further let the people down when they decided merely to punish the operator by terminating the contract instead of suing Umpan Jaya in a civil court to seek for compensation.

Operating an incinerator is far more complex than a waste transfer station in terms of needing high skilled workers and following stringent regulations closely. Any mishandling will certainly result in disaster which endangers not only plant workers but also neighbouring residential areas.

A very good example was the explosion tragedy happened at Shanghai Jiangqiao MSW incineration plant on Dec 5, 2013 which claimed one life and four victims suffered serious injuries. Further, Singapore’s Tuas incinerator caught fire and three victims suffered serious burn injuries.

Malaysians don’t practice segregation of waste

People worry about the poor maintenance culture but what’s even worse is that the authority is not keen on increasing the rates of recycling and segregation of waste.

According to a survey commissioned by Malayian Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry, the recycling rate is only 11 percent in 2013, which is very low compared with many developed countries.

Despite the fact that the Malaysian government is empowered by law since 2007 to implement segregation of waste at sources, there is still no sign of the law being enforced.

Apart from that, the composition of waste is far different from other developed countries like Japan. The organic waste which can be converted into fertiliser accounts for extremely high portion, as much as 58 percent of total waste in 2011. (Source: Municipal Solid Waste Management in Asia and the Pacific Islands, 2013. p.199)

Moreover, a well-known waste professional, Professor Agamuthu, opines that 45 percent of Kuala Lumpur waste is recyclable. For example, if properly recycled, approximately 41 percent of the Kuala Lumpur total waste of about 3000 tons/day could yield as much as RM 55,260 daily, Agamuthu added. (Municipal Solid Waste Management in Asia and the Pacific Islands, 2013. p 211) Sending all these recyclable items into combustion chamber will be a great waste.

Therefore, setting up an incinerator prior to the implementation of an effective 3R programme, including making separation at source mandatory, is definitely a poor policy decision.

KTI objects to incinerators

The KL Tak Nak Insinerator or Kuala Lumpur Rejects Incinerator Action Committee (KTI) is a non-governmental organisation which was formed in late July 2013 in response to the proposal of building a mega incinerator in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

The group, which is the most vocal anti-incinerator NGO in Malaysia, mainly consists of local residents who denounce the proposal. The group opposes the incinerator plan due to several reasons, i.e. health problem, high operating cost, devaluation of property values, increase of assessment rate and environmental issues.

KTI has been accused of opposing incinerator due to the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) syndrome by authorities since last year. In contrast, until today the authorities or people who are pro-incinerator cannot prove that an incinerator is better than Zero Waste Management. In fact, they tend to dodge when being questioned about how incinerator is better than Zero Waste Management.

Making such accusation without looking into KTI’s non-incinerator waste management solutions is no more than a dodge and lazy response.

San Francisco, United States, declared they had reduced and recycled 80 percent of municipal waste and targeted to achieve Zero Waste by the year of 2020 in 2013. Surabaya, Indonesia, has successfully reduced 20 percent of waste within four years (1,783 tonnes reduced to 1,229.43 tonnes). Penang is gearing towards promoting the Zero Waste concept.

There are many alternative waste solutions instead of focusing on thermal treatment alone. If segregation of rubbish at sources reaches 40-50 percent and an effective recycling mechanism be put in place, the incinerator would have not enough raw material or rubbish for burning. Indeed, Sweden has proven to the world that an effective recycling, reuse and reduce effort can leave notenough rubbish for incineration process. Again, the authorities tend to ignore this very fact. 

Apart from that, Mechanical Biological Treatment, Material Recovery Facility and Anaerobic Digestion are greener technologies compared with thermal treatment. That’s why KTI is working hard to demand the authorities study all available technology and methods before jumping to the conclusion of selecting a thermal treatment solution.

In a nutshell, NIMBY is not the reason which drives KTI against incinerator actively, instead what drives KTI the most is the concern of sustainability and value for money.  

 

LAM CHOONG WAH is director of media, KL Tak Nak Insinerator (KTI).