A megawalk from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya will be held next year to protest against the proposed Kepong incinerator, announced Kuala Lumpur Rejects Incinerator Action Committee (KTI) yesterday.

This walk, called Megawalk 2.0, will start its 45km march from Kuala Lumpur on Feb 23, 2014 to reach the Prime Minister’s Office in Putrajaya on Feb 24 to hand over KTI’s memorandum to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

“KTI had decided to organise Megawalk 2.0 as the memorandum we sent to Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) and parliament previously did not reach the prime minister,” said KTI chairperson Isaiah Jacob in a press statement yesterday.

NONE On Nov 25, KTI had performed its first march from Taman Sri Murni in Kepong to the doorsteps of the DBKL headquarters to hand over a memorandum, and then continued the march from DBKL to parliament to hand over the same memorandum demanding that the proposed incinerator be scrapped.

Furthermore, KTI had urged the government to focus on 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) education to the public as an alternative to incinerators in November.

“We want to organise lectures to the people at Selayang, Batu, Kepong and Segambut from December 2013 until February 2014 to create awareness about 3R and incinerators,” Isaiah said, adding that KTI will invite the areas’ representative officials to work together with them.

Based on KTI’s latest research, they found that the cost of the incinerators’ management of garbage is RM25.4 million more than the current cost of garbage disposal using landfills.

Isaiah stated that with the current use of landfills, there is no need to waste money on incinerators.

“The Bukit Tagar (Hulu Selangor) landfill can hold 120 millions tonnes of rubbish, and until today, it has only been filled with 1.4 million tonnes of garbage...

“The landfill could be operated for another 120 years to fill up the whole landfill... There is no need to build such an expensive incinerator,” Isaiah said in response to Federal Territories Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor’s statement on Nov 26 that one of the main reasons for the proposed assessment hike is due to the increased costs of collecting garbage.

‘Not enough expertise to operate incinerators’

Isaiah also cited the 2012 Auditor-General’s Report that revealed the government does not have enough expertise to operate incinerators in this country.

“The operation of the incinerator needs to be done by experts and experienced workers. Without experts, accidents and mishap can easily occur,” said Isaiah.

The planned incinerator in Taman Beringin, Kepong has been rejected by the residents of the area as it wil be located a mere 3km radius from residential areas, comprising almost 1,000 houses.

KTI expressed concern that the combustion of garbage could lead to health problems such as cancer, asthma, disabilities in children being born due to the release of hazardous gasses rich in mercury, lead and other chemical compunds.