Safe options in managing waste

By R B Bhattacharjee


Thanks to our current lifestyle, disposing of trash has become a billion-ringgit problem. An average Malaysian household produces 0.8kg of waste a day,
while Klang Valley residents weigh in with 1.5kg daily. That doesn’t seem like much until it is multiplied across a population of 25 million. Last year, Malaysians generated in excess of 7.3 million tonnes of garbage, enough to fill 42 Petronas Twin Towers, as one famous example has it. Local authorities spend about RM854 million —
or 60% — of their annual budget on waste-disposal services.

For decades, this by-product of urbanisation was tipped into 246 dumpsites around the peninsula. Most of these facilities are anything but sanitary,
receiving all kinds of hazardous discards that make them environmental disasters. The problem is due to the copious leachate that seeps into the
ground or flows into nearby rivers, contaminating the water supply in many places.
But time is running out for local governments. Waste management experts forecast that over 80% of dumpsites in the country will be filled to the brim in less than two years. Already, scores of sites that have reached their capacity have been closed.

“We have to adopt waste reduction soon,” says the environmental crusader Gurmit Singh. “Basically, the people who generate waste must be prepared
to pay for it.” The situation has become so grave that a Cabinet committee on solid waste management had to be set up earlier this year. At the end of April, Deputy
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, who heads the panel, ordered 16 of the dumpsites that posed a threat to public health to be closed immediately. Another 33 that were situated close to water sources would have to be shut down as soon as possible.

Alternatives at our disposal

What then do we do with our urban waste? Three approaches are on the table: incinerators, sanitary landfills and refuse-derived fuel (RDF) plants.
Waste incineration has been tried with mixed results, including in Langkawi, Pangkor, Tioman and Labuan islands, where small 15-ton thermal plants
have been built. But the incinerator planned for Broga, about 50km south of Kuala Lumpur, is the grand-daddy of them all. Touted to be the largest in Asia, it will cost RM1.5 billion to build and have a capacity of 1,500 tons per day. However, the project, to be developed by Ebara Corp of Japan, has run smack into
protests from day one.

The primary objection against burning solid waste is its high cost. Ton for ton, incineration is twice as costly as tipping waste into a sanitary landfill. When capital costs are included, the ratio jumps dramatically. And that’s just the tip of the dump heap, say opponents of incineration. A by-product of incineration is dioxin, which has been billed as the most dangerous substance made by man.

Critics of the proposed incinerator say the plant is projected to have a lifespan of just 20 to 25 years. That provides too small a window for waste
management at a high cost, they argue. A major problem with waste incineration in the tropics, says the Philippines-based anti-incinerator group Gaia, is that the trash is extremely wet, typically with over 40% moisture content. In Malaysia, this can rise to 60%, says an industry expert. In theory, the waste could be dried, but this means
providing holding facilities, and therefore poses logistical problems, given the quantity and constant generation of waste.

A second option is to spray the waste with fuel to promote burning, but that would push up the costs of waste treatment further. Then there is the question of what is to be done with the incinerator ash. For every three tons of garbage burnt, one ton of toxic ash will be produced, according to a Sahabat Alam Malaysia statement on the project’s environmental impact assessment report.

The Broga project proponents propose to dump the ash in the vicinity of Sungai Saring­git, upstream of a water intake point on the Semenyih river. The
water from the river supplies some two million people in the Klang Valley, Putrajaya and Negri Sembilan. The project’s advocates, on their part, have proposed a further treatment of the waste by vitrification, or combining the toxic waste with glass, which is inert, before it is buried. This raises the question of further costs, but may be necessary to address safety concerns.

“The problem with incineration is maintenance, for which our country has a bad track record,” says Gurmit. “So, it won’t be a surprise if there is a problem one or two years down the road.”
“We are not like Japan or Singapore, which have a good maintenance culture.

“The central question in the incinerator issue concerns dioxin. Who will monitor the dioxin level, and will the monitoring be continuous? These details are
not known,” he points out.

“That is why we have been asking for information about the project to be made public, so that people can identify the potential problems.

“For example, in the case of Bukit Nanas [toxic waste facility], it was only required to monitor the dioxin level once in six months because there were no
testing facilities available then,” says Gurmit.
Given the potential for things to go wrong, it is not suprising that residents in the vicinity of the proposed incinerator have tried to stop it. A first suit was filed by residents of Kampung Broga in November 2003 to get the full details of the project.
On Feb 14 last year, residents of a neighbouring housing estate, Taman Tasik Semenyih, who filed a second suit to stop the project altogether, obtained an interim stop work order.

Dr Zulkefly Mohd Omar, the chairman of the Broga residents sub-committee against the incinerator project is optimistic that the residents will win their
court battle. An encouraging sign, he says, is that the Department of Environment (DoE) has rejected the proposal for a landfill at Broga because it will be located in
the water catchment area.

“Over two million people receive water from the Semenyih river, exposing them to high risk if toxic chemicals leach into the water supply.

“The incinerator is not suitable because all kinds of plastic and metals like aluminium will be burnt, posing a grave danger to the people,” Zulkefly says.

“The RDF plant [in Semenyih] is a better proposal because it has a lesser impact on the environment.”

But these are partial solutions at best, says Zulkefly. “The recycling campaign must be reactivated. Zero waste should become part of our lives.”
For Zulkefly, the track record for incinerators in the country speaks for itself. “The Langkawi incinerator, which is based on Swiss technology, has been
closed down because the waste was too wet. That should be a lesson for us,” he says.

Landfill cheaper, safer

In comparison, disposing waste in a sanitary landfill is a much cheaper and safer option, provided leachate is properly handled.

“Landfill management is all about leachate, leachate and leachate,” says KUB-Berjaya Enviro (KBE) managing director Chock Eng Tah, who is in charge
of the Bukit Tagar sanitary landfill.
Situated 25km from Rawang, the landfill occupies over 687ha nestled in a tranquil oil palm estate. “We could receive more than the 1,500 tonnes that we currently take, but the capacity of the leachate treatment plant must be upgraded first,” says Chock.
To ensure that the leachate does not contaminate water sources, the sanitary landfill’s waste disposal cells are protected by a high-density polyurethane (HDP) liner. Leachate that collects at the bottom is pumped into a holding pond, and then to the treatment plant, where aerobic bacteria get to work on it.
At the current rate of waste production in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, says Chock, the Bukit Tagar landfill will take 40 years to fill.

From an environmental point of view, it is important that no leachate leaks into the ground water. While surface leachate can be treated, the experience of other countries with ground water contamination has proved costly. Ground water monitoring is needed to avoid problems later. The quality of the lining must also be sufficient to ensure that there is no breach in the insulation. The Bukit Tagar facility came under the spotlight in March and April when various quarters sought to trace the source of pollution that led to the shutdown of water supply to parts of the Klang Valley.

Chock maintains that the facility is built to international standards and complies with the DoE’s strict guidelines on solid waste management.
KBE was asked by the federal government at the end of 2003 to prepare an advance cell at Bukit Tagar to receive solid waste from Kuala Lumpur City
Hall (DBKL) when the Selangor government landfill at Air Hitam, Puchong, was closed to DBKL, says Chock.

While Phase 1 of the landfill and the leachate treatment plant was being prepared, leachate from the advance cell was held at a secured holding pond to prevent contamination of water sources. The advance cell will need to be closed in two months, says Chock, unless permission is granted for a six-month extension. By that time, Phase 1 would be ready, he says.

In the face of a growing waste management problem, a 4R strategy — reduce, reuse, recycle and recover — has become increasingly necessary, especially as a consumerist culture takes hold in society. With some 40% of municipal solid waste consisting of organic matter, the potential for turning this into valuable fertiliser is an attractive proposal. Past efforts to jumpstart a comprehensive recycling programme, in which consumers separate recyclables including paper, aluminium and glass, were
doomed by poor maintenance and the lack of financial incentives.

Gurmit points out that the negative aspects of incinerators on the one hand are their high cost and toxic residues, while landfills on the other hand are land-intensive.
“Incinerators have to deal with the disposal of residues. Some people have mixed it with tar, but the question is how long it remains sealed in roadworks,” he says. “It should be cast into cement blocks or vitirified before being buried in a sanitary landfill.”

A third option being pursued is to burn the waste to generate energy in an RDF plant. A project in Semenyih based on this concept is scheduled to come onstream this month.
Gurmit expresses some reservations about its viability. “About 40% of our waste is organic, and wet, so it requires a two-stage burner. That may require fuel to be used, which raises the question of whether there is any net energy gain,” says Gurmit. “The better method is to go for waste reduction.”

“Ideally, all organic matter should be composted, and all recyclable items removed. Then the rest should be buried. Incinerators can be an option when
you run out of land,” he adds. “Zero waste targets have to be set at some time.”

posted by Lim Sze Ghee

Looking For The Best Option In Waste Management

A Special Report By Siti Hawa Othman And Rosyatimah Tukimin

KUALA LUMPUR, April 26 (Bernama) -- Come Friday, the nation will know how its solid waste, a lingering issue with no solution in sight, is going to be managed, albeit, correctly.

While the so-called "best technology" for waste management is yet to be decided, the public, on the other hand, should be made aware of the options available and for the government to exercise caution when choosing the methods to be used, that is by also evaluating advanced technologies already in use by developed countries.

Malaysians generally have been quite familiar with open dumping and landfills, the sites where most of the solid wastes they generated had gone to.

In addressing the waste management problem, the government has resorted to landfills, incinerators and now the focus seems to be on recycling and conversion of waste to refuse-derived fuel (RDF).

Others have suggested that a holistic, community-driven approach that focuses on waste prevention, reduction, segregation, recycling and composting would be a better solution.

CHOOSING THE BEST METHOD

Which is the best way to manage wastes?

The Cabinet Committee on Environmental Issues headed by Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, will meet this Friday to decide on a final proposal for the country's solid waste management.

The meeting, it was reported, would take recommendations in previously approved projects as well as new views on managing wastes properly, including that of the RDF.

The RDF technology is being used in the United States, Europe and Japan.

Open dumping and landfill are not good options, industry sources told Bernama, and the recent leachate problem at Bukit Tagar landfill is testimony to that.

In fact Australia, a country with a population of 22 million and ample open space is not looking at landfill or incineration but at alternative waste-disposal technologies.

To address the landfill problem, many countries have turned to incinerators but these too are considered taboos as they pollute the air and emit toxic chemicals such as the cancer-causing dioxin and furan.

INCINERATORS POLLUTE THE AIR

The RM1.5 billion Broga gasification plant project did not take off the ground due to protests from local residents as they claimed this project poses risks to the environment.

The incinerator could burn 1,500 tonnes of rubbish via the fluidised bed gasification technology but the normal incineration temperature of 1,200 degrees Celcius would not get rid of dioxins and furans.

A Greenpeace report -- "Incineration and Human Health", reveals, among others, a 670 per cent increase risk of death from lung cancer among residents living near a municipal solid waste incinerator in Italy, as well as a 126 per cent increase in birth defects in newborn babies living near two municipal waste incinerators in Belgium based on studies conducted in the country in 1998.

Now the talk is about recycling and RDF which many consider a good alternative to incineration. But are these still the right choices?

Questions arise as to what happens to the RDF in order to convert it into energy. Does it involve burning which leads us back to square one?

FIRST WASTE-TO-ENERGY PLANT

It has been reported that the RDF project is set to take off when the first waste-to-energy plant in Hulu Semenyih begins operations in June.

This plant could process up to 1,000 tonnes of municipal wastes by reducing the moisture content to 20 per cent and increasing the energy content to 3,000-4,000 kilocalories (kcal) as compared to 850-900 kcal for raw wastes.

However, in order to generate electricity from the wastes, it will still involve combustion, which is more dangerous than the now-defunct gasification project in Broga.

In its haste to solve the problem where leachate seeps into underground water, the government has been focusing on the RDF.

The RDF technology is a step-by-step segregation of combustible and non-combustible materials, with the former converted into free-burning pellets to produce energy.

SEPARATION OF MATERIALS

Non-combustible materials are further separated to recover metals, paper, plastics, glass and other materials of economic value which can be recycled.

Apparently only 10 to 15 per cent of the original amount of solid waste remains after the separation, drying, shredding and pelletisation.

The non-recyclable residue can be safely disposed at landfills as they do not generate odour, leachate, greenhouse gases or volatile organic compounds.

However, burning of the RDF for energy conversion would become an air problem and this is worse than the water problem.

Will the choice of this technology to manage waste, solve bigger problems or will it create others?

-- BERNAMA

posted by Lim Sze Ghee