MAY 8 — I have read a few pieces talking about waste to energy plants in the press recently, and quite frankly there seems to be a lot of misinformation going around. Since none of the companies seem to be reacting, I'll voice out some valid factual points which anyone can Google and find.
The first piece I read was one mentioning that Batu MP Tian Chua was worried about "black smoke" coming out of such facilities, affecting the residents surrounding a soon to be established waste to energy plant currently a landfill.
At this point, I wonder if any of the MPs talking about this subject have ever had the curiosity during their multiple trips to Europe have ever even talked about this with those in the industry — or at least had the curiosity to ask Malaysian companies with the reputation for building such facilities.
Perhaps they can go talk to KNM Group Bhd who was involved in building such plants in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Germany and Vienna. Or maybe JFE Engineering (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, who has been involved in such projects in Japan since 1991.
Or maybe approach IRIS Corp Bhd who have built two such plants in Phuket and Bangkok in Thailand.
In fact, if incinerators were so bad, perhaps you can ask how JFE has been building such for Perodua to handle their paint sludge in Rawang since 2001, or GS Paper for their waste in Kuala Langat since 2003, and their latest hazardous waste incinerator located in Kuching and in operation since 2014.
And then, a letter recently by one Tajuddin Ramlee raised the spectre of health issues that may appear due to incinerators and its effects on four schools in his neighbourhood.
To answer En Tajuddin, the reason why there has been no feedback session, is because the project has yet to be awarded. No company has been granted the contract to build the waste to energy plant by the ministry involved.
Until then, there will be no public feedback session. But allow me to write what I've learnt from reading some facts on this issue.
First off, there is a need to differentiate between incinerators and waste to energy plants. The latter has intensive regulations and technology implemented with regards to air quality when compared to the former.
Waste to energy plants, such as which is planned in Kepong, are commonplace in multiple countries around the globe and has been safely established for some time.
Singapore in May 2016 approved a US$473 million (RM2.05 billion) loan for a period of 27 years to establish such a waste to energy power plant which will process 3,600 tonnes of waste while generating 120MW of power for their nation. You can find this news here.
In 2013, Sweden ran out of trash and imported 800,000 tonnes of it to generate energy. Northern Europe — including Germany and Austria, also does the same. Also, please note that Malaysian companies have been involved in building these since 1991, and therefore we do have experience in this field for over 26 years — add another 4 years and it will be an entire generation.
Should one go to Paris, you could find an underground waste to energy plant 350 metres away from the office of Microsoft France, right next to the River Seine — which was in operation since December 2007 at the price of €580 mil to process 460,000 tonnes of trash.
In Charles Montgomery's book Happy City which discusses transforming lives through urban design, he even details designs of waste to energy plants which will become ski slopes, and even one with the piston in the smokestack which will produce an 'O' ring to signal a tonne of carbon dioxide being pumped into the sky of Copenhagen.
And this is yet another fallacy that must be addressed — the power plant does not expound toxic gas. It lets out CO2 and water, while everything else is filtered out. You can find details of this in the Best Available Technology (BAT) report published by the Department of Environment with the cooperation and in consultation of Universiti Malaya (UM), the Malaysia German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and relevant industries and stakeholders.
Critics argue that the ash is toxic and therefore should be feared, but at the same time insist on recycling as the only option. This is wrong, because waste to energy plants are not a replacement for recycling. Instead, it is complementary technology. Waste to energy plants are often complemented with recycling initiatives to ensure that recycling takes priority.
Waste to energy plants are instead a replacement for landfills, case in point the one in Kepong. It is not the plant which will spew black smoke as that misguided lawmaker and his entire political coalition points out to the level of putting it into their Kuala Lumpur manifesto.
A waste to energy plant is supposed to stop us from using plots of land to dump trash and stink up entire areas while releasing methane into the atmosphere and risking whatever pollutants from seeping into the earth and polluting our groundwater supply and subsequently the water tables.
Now, having said all this, understand that what is being advocated in Kepong and even by the Selangor government is a solution against having garbage trucks filling up plots of land with trash. Recycling will reduce that amount. Reusing will also reduce the amount.
But it only reduces the amount of waste, not by much if we see our national goals in terms of recycling. No country has a total dependency on recycling as a solution for waste management as of yet and in fact, using trash in a waste to energy plant is considered renewable energy and recycling in certain European countries.
So, now I have to ask this — what exactly is the fear?
If you fear the technology, then the BAT report with UM and GTZ as consultants, shows it can be safe.
If you fear the companies implementing it do not have the experience, well, we do have Malaysian engineering companies with 26 years experience in this field in Thailand, Germany, Japan, Austria and even Switzerland.
The truth is this, Malaysians don’t trust the government, don’t trust their own companies, and don’t even bother to read up and would rather listen to fear mongering groups who go about with support of politicians who know nuts even after being to Europe multiple times and never had the curiosity to bother asking about this topic until they were nudged in the wrong direction.
Frankly speaking, the British, the Europeans, the Koreans, the Australians, the Thais and even the Singaporeans, have decided to burn trash to produce energy with environmental safeguards squarely in place for so long, and to say we shouldn't do the same based on misinformation and irrational fear is downright tragic for a nation of supposed progressives such as ours.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
