KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 25 — A group of opposition MPs today told the government to drop plans to set up an incinerator on the border of several opposition-held constituencies in the city, claiming that it would likely only add to the existing pollution that comes with solid waste.
The lawmakers from DAP and PKR claimed that they have received information that Putrajaya is working towards issuing the tender for the new facility as early as January next year.
PKR’s Batu MP Chua Tian Chang said they were made to understand that the proposed incinerator would be located in Jinjang, straddling the border of Kepong, Batu, Selayang and Segambut.
“I think if it were carried out, it would be done in a rush and won’t be studied in detail. The government must go over the EIA before a decision is made,” he said at a press conference at the Parliament lobby, referring to the mandatory environmental impact assessment for any and all development projects.
Earlier, the MPs received a copy of a memorandum by a group of city residents, who call themselves the Kuala Lumpur Against Incinerator action committee, seeking the scrapping of the proposed incinerator project over concerns that it would end up becoming a health hazard.
In a media statement issued by committee chairman Isaiah Jacob, he said the government had not been able to prove that it is capable of managing such a facility based on the findings of the 2012 Auditor-General’s report, which said that the country faces a shortage of experts to run existing incinerators in the islands of Langkawi, Pangkor, Tioman and Labuan and also in Cameron Highlands.
Isaiah added that the technology still spews out between 20 and 30 per cent of toxic materials comprising heavy metals, dioxins and toxic gases out of the solid waste that is processed, leading to documented health hazards as suffered by residents in the United Kingdom and in Japan in areas that were within a five-kilometre radius of an incinerator.
DAP’s Cheras MP Tan Kok Wai said that even the government realises the dangers posed by incinerators, having made it a rule under the Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry not to allow any incinerators to be built within 50 kilometres of any mainstream population.
“Within the immediate area of the proposed incinerator, you’re looking at 300,000 people at the least. But if you expand it to the 50 kilometres under the rule, this will affect millions in both Kuala Lumpur and Selangor,” he said.
DAP lawmaker for Kepong, Dr Tan Seng Giaw said the most important step that the government must take now is to engage with the public and be fully transparent and open in discussing the issue with the public.
He acknowledged that solid waste management is a difficult problem, with residents in Kepong and Jinjang having long suffered from the stench of putrefying rubbish due to the existence of a solid waste transfer station.
“They (government) have not actually said it is an incinerator, but it is wrong to announce what you want to do without consulting the people
“I agree that it is not easy to deal with solid waste. In Kuala Lumpur we’re looking at 2,000 to 3,000 tonnes a day. But we are not Tokyo or Seoul. This is Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia, so we should do it in a Malaysian way,” he said, referring to the solid waste incinerator and power plant system used by both Tokyo and Seoul.
