"Is the Barisan Nasional government willing to guarantee Broga residents compensation for loss of property value, lives and health in the event of an incinerator-related disaster?"

"No" is DAP's response in a memorandum to the Department of Environment as a pre-requisite to determine the final terms of reference for a detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study o­n the mega-incinerator project in Broga near Semenyih.

Copies of the memorandum were sent to Housing and Local Government Minister o­ng Ka Ting, Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) chairperson Abu Talib Othman and the World Health Organisation (WHO) office in Kuala Lumpur.

DAP national publicity secretary Ronnie Liu, who submitted the memorandum to the department o­n Saturday, outlined the reasons for opposing incinerators in Broga as well as in Malaysia.

"All incinerators, including the proposed world's largest fluidised-bed gasification type to be designed and built by Ebara Corp of Japan, will inevitably discharge dioxin and other toxic wastes," he said.

"Considering that dioxin is known to cause cancer and other diseases, and that there is no such thing as a safe level for dioxin, it is therefore unacceptable to build incinerators in Malaysia," he added.

He said Ebara's track record in building incinerators was unproven, merely based o­n the few pilot projects in Japan, with the biggest being a 600-tonne plant.

Cost factor

Besides the disastrous consequences following water contamination in case of an accident at the 1,500-tonne proposed plant, he said the cost of burning trash was also high.

"It is more than RM240 a tonne compared to the current cost of about RM24 a tonne using landfills, inevitably pushing up the quit rent and other utility fees for Malaysian households."

As an illustration, Liu said a plant that burns 400,000 tonnes of trash a year produces 200kg particulate emission daily - equivalent to 3.4 million diesel vehicles traveling down a road every hour.

"In England, 88 people die and 168 are hospitalised every year for lung-related diseases associated with emission from the country's 12 existing incinerators.

"The chances of a woman developing breast cancer used to be o­ne in 20 in 1960, now it is o­ne in eight."

He said sperm counts were also down by half of what the recorded figures 50 years ago while testicular cancer had tripled and prostrate cancer had doubled within the same period.

"(In a pregnant woman), dioxin crosses the placenta and is present in breast milk, passing to the baby even before it is born.

"No insurance company is likely to underwrite such 'high-risk' mega-projects, especially after the Sept 11 incident in the US," he added.

Citing the Philippines as the o­nly country to ban incinerators, Liu said England, Japan and others have begun dismantling existing plants and stopped building new o­nes in view of the serious hazards.

He also referred to previous statements by the Selangor government prohibiting hillside developments in areas with a gradient above 25 degrees, especially after the Highland Towers tragedy in 1993 and major landslides in Ampang and Gombak areas.

"Why is the state government now going against its word?" asked the DAP leader.

Better alternatives

He said there were better alternatives to municipal solid waste management.

"We can achieve 60 percent waste reduction through recycling, which is a better alternative, and the residual waste is less dangerous (unlike the toxic ash generated through incineration)."

Quoting from a Greenpeace International report o­n ' Zero Waste: The Way Forward ', Liu said both landfills and incinerators were costly and generated little local income.

"Society has been stuck with these expensive, unsafe, quick-fix waste management systems that perpetuate a mindless throw-away mentality to what is a potential resource for too long," stated the report.

Quoting from another report ' Incineration: The burning issue ', Liu said scientists have identified over 200 toxic, or potentially toxic, substances from the incineration of municipal solid waste alone.

"The pollutants are released into the environment in incinerator smoke clouds and in the ash, which is then spread into the environment and can leach into groundwater, contaminating rivers and seas," read the report.

The report, which formed part of the DAP's reference material in the memorandum, stated that significantly higher levels of dioxin were found in people, food and soil near incinerators, and in some areas, the levels were higher than what was considered safe by the WHO.