This is in answer to the anonymous “Environmental Engineer” who asked “The big question — do we need an incinerator?” in a letter FMT published yesterday.
It appears that the writer did not bother to check his facts with a little googling.
He said: “I am among the fortunate few who had the opportunity to visit the Bukit Tagar sanitary landfill (BTSL) for an educational visit some years ago and we were told that the total land size gazetted for landfilling activities was 1,700 acres, capable of handling waste from the Klang Valley and Kuala Lumpur for the next 60 years.”
I’m glad the writer managed to make such a visit, but his facts are wrong and this can be seen in the information given in the very website he asked readers to browse.
Of the 1,700 acres, only 700 are for landfilling. The other 1,000 acres are supposed to form a “buffer zone”. We all know what a buffer zone is for. It provides distance from something to avoid, in this case, contamination.
Is Environmental Engineer suggesting that the 1,000-acre buffer zone will be used to expand the landfill until it eventually borders developed land? If so, it’s rather disturbing.
Furthermore, BTSL is marketed as a 40-year solution, not 60, as Environmental Engineer tells us.
He also said: “In the Bukit Tagar sanitary landfill, leachate produced is treated in the leachate treatment plant that conforms to full Department of Environment standards. Meanwhile, the methane gas produced in the landfill cells are extracted to produce electricity and then connected to the grid, that is electricity sold to Tenaga Nasional Berhad.”
According to the website that he cited, BTSL sells back 4.4MW of electricity to the grid while experimenting with solar energy. The website adds: “The 125-kilowatt solar project is presently experimenting with different solar panel technologies to determine the most effective technology to adopt in future expansion. Energy produced from the solar project will be supplied to TNB under the Fit-In tariff scheme.”
Does this mean that the 1,700-acre landfill may somehow be used as a solar energy farm? Perhaps the writer can clarify. It now sounds as if the landfill will, some time in the future, become a profit-generating solar power plant and cease being a landfill.
Environmental Engineer also said: “It is still the most economical waste disposal method in the world. Many countries such as Australia, New Zealand, or even Hong Kong practise 100% landfilling.”
Australia won’t be practising 100% landfilling for much longer. In fact, Perth has been building its waste-to-energy plant since 2015, which is the Kwinana WTE. It will begin operations in 2018. The cost is listed at A$400 million (RM1.28 billion).
Authorities in Adelaide have also suggested going for a waste-to-energy plant to the tune of A$300 million (RM957.7 million).
New Zealand has revisited a proposition to build a waste-to-energy plant to service South Island at a cost of NZ$250 million (RM752.7 million). This project met some controversy recently due to conflicts of interest for the people involved.
Hong Kong, on the other hand, is still a landfill haven, though the expansion of a landfill was met with protests in 2013, and waste-to-energy plants have been on the books since 2014.
Hong Kong started a waste-to-energy plant on May 19, 2016. The waste is sewage sludge.
Many nations are now adopting waste-to-energy technology. While Environmental Engineer looked to Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, I looked closer to Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia.
Yet, the writer doesn’t seem certain that waste-to-energy plants are safe, and such uncertainty is not something we would expect from an environmental engineer.
In fact, dioxin release and its effects were studied in Lisbon and found safe. The result of the study was published in 2007.
The dioxin theory was debunked in Germany as early as 1993, and again in Catalonia, Spain, in 2009-2010.
The writer was right in saying that we have a lot of land that we can convert into sanitary landfills (which somehow might double up as solar farms). But should we keep piling on more and more trash for another 40 years?
The proper big question is: Why are we still throwing so much trash?
Now that we’re almost in the month of Ramadan, I would like to ask Malaysians – Muslims as well as others – to reduce those large purchases at the bazaars and boycott buffets to avoid wasting food. We are on the right track towards waste reduction, but sometimes, during Ramadan, hunger and thirst get the better of us.
Perhaps this year we can learn to avoid wasting, not just during Ramadan, but also during the Raya open house period.
Hafidz Baharom is an FMT reader.
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