SPECIAL REPORT | Touted by the government as a solution to Malaysia’s burgeoning trash problems, waste-to-energy incinerators continue to be a hard sell.

For two decades, the incinerator project has been a shifting idea, moving from one location to another as communities push back.

It began in 2003 when then-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad proposed the idea of building a large-scale incinerator.

First, the proposed site was in...