But the operation is possibly illegal, without permission from the city council, and residents of nearby housing estates have complained about the acrid stench, like that of electrical wiring after a short-circuit.
FMT went to investigate after residents of Relau and the larger Sungai Ara area complained of the smell beginning earlier this year. The residents said they had seen plumes of smoke appearently from large “bonfires” at the site.
The site is hidden from sight by large raintrees, but the open burning is a giveaway, and clearly visible from tall apartments that dot the fringes of the hill.
Access to the site is via a tiny, cracked, nondescript road without any signboards. A Tenaga Nasional pole indicates it is on Jalan Kampung Batak, off Persiaran Relau.
The site is situated on a roughly 3ha plateau. On one end of the road, about 10 construction tipper lorries were parked. Five forklift trucks were sorting rubbish from mounds of waste, comprising mostly plastic items such as bottles, old engine oil containers and old food packets.
All along the road are tell-tale plastic containers and all sorts of waste strewn on both sides.
A man in his 50s was seen “patrolling” the road on his motorcycle. In a span of an hour, seven tipper lorries were observed making their way up.
These lorries had construction waste, plastic waste and some were covered up in tarpaulin sheets. The lorries had their windscreens covered in sun shades as if to hide their identities. They had a slight opening in the middle of the windscreen for the driver to look ahead.
At the foot of the hill is an old folks’ home, whose superviser said the lorries had become an annoyance, as they criss-cross every other night.
The superviser, who refused to be identified, said they have become accustomed to the sounds of the lorries navigating the potholed road, but could not stand the dust that the vehicles brought.
“I think these lorries have been operating for about four years. They are a nuisance, there is a lot of dust coming straight into our quarters as they come down, and not to mention, noise, too,” he said.
“I suspect it is the same people who once ran a recycling centre down the road. The Bandaraya guys came to cut their power and water, and ripped out their fences,” he said.
Checks on Google Earth showed that the site, on an elevation of about 60m, was not in existence in 2008 but appeared to have been cleared some time in 2009 to 2010.
Further checks on Google’s StreetView with images from 2018 showed the roadsides next to the facility filled with what appears to be large gunny sacks of plastic waste.
FMT was alerted to the site after a group of residents from Sungai Ara claimed that they smelled burnt plastic in the air just a few days before Chinese New Year. A resident claimed that the site was billowing black smoke for a few nights and it was followed by a noxious smell later.
An MBPP official said the council has not given any licenses to operate dumping sites there and even if they did, such sites were subject to stringent environment impact studies beforehand.
The official asked FMT for the dumpsite’s location so that immediate action could be taken. Penang environment committee chairman Phee Boon Poh said his team would investigate the site immediately.