The Star 1 Nov 10;
KUALA LUMPUR: The long-standing landfill problem has affected almost everyone in the country.
Besides causing social and environmental problems, landfills are also economically detrimental.
Local councils are spending between 30% and 80% of their assessment collection for waste treatment. And, these councils do nothing more than make the garbage pile up into a seemingly endless problem.
The bad management of most landfills has resulted in several “time bombs”. One “exploded” in September when leachate from a landfill in Semenyih contaminated Sungai Kembong and Sungai Beranang, the intake points of the Sungai Semenyih water treatment plant.
The plant was forced to close down due to high levels of ammonia, causing a 14-hour water supply disruption, which resulted in about a million consumers in Petaling, Hulu Langat, Sepang, Kuala Langat and Putrajaya being affected by it.
Such problems, according to Association of Environmental Consultants and Contractors of Malaysia chairman Datuk Dr Abu Bakar Jaafar, were bound to happen.
“Virtually all landfills in Malaysia were established by designation instead of by design, except for the new sanitary landfills,” he said.
According to the Housing and Local Government Ministry, there are 176 operating landfill sites, another 114 end-of-life sites and only eight sanitary landfills in the country.
This means that only eight landfills were constructed according to specifications while the rest are polluting the environment and ruining public health in varying degrees.
And, then there are the illegal ones.
“When local authorities need to discard waste, they just find some place and dump everything there without any planning, engineering and even site selection to see if it is safe. When people start complaining about stench, pests and scavengers, they just bring lorries full of soil to cover them,” he said.
Dr Abu Bakar is the former director-general of the Department of Environment, where he had worked for about 20 years.
“I was kept busy by landfill fires that often broke out in the middle of the night. Some scavengers burned mattresses to retrieve metal parts, leading to landfills on fire,” he said.
Even the closure of landfills was done shoddily. “Often, closures did not meet standards and before you know it, low-cost flats and housing projects were built on these sites.”
“I would not be surprised if one day a house blows up all of a sudden as there is gas in these badly closed landfills.” he said.
Dr Abu Bakar said he was disappointed that the situation had not improved much after all these years. A waste management report submitted by Malaysia to the United Nations back in 1971 bore close resemblance to the current situation.
He said the Environmental Quality Act addressed mainly pollution caused by factories, while only the Local Government Act, and Street, Drainage and Building Act addressed wastes produced at home.
“Even so, the laws are ineffective and outdated,” he said.
Dr Abu Bakar proposed a comprehensive structure for the treatment of solid waste, covering three categories namely dry, perishable and toxic waste from home, and eventually be recycled or be used to regenerate energy.
“An effective structure for waste management requires the commitment of at least 11 ministries,” he said.
“If that can be in place, we won’t need landfills.”
Landfills pose environmental hazard and require time to rehabilitate
The Star 1 Nov 10;
KUALA LUMPUR: About 90% of landfills in the country are mere open dumpsites and only a handful are sanitary landfills that meet the rules set by the Housing and Local Government Ministry.
Of these landfills, the Government has identified 16 critical ones situated near water intake points or the sea.
It is learnt that these landfills were identified by the Japan International Cooperation Agency in 2004 and the Government ordered their closure in 2006.
(These sites are currently in various phases of “rehabilitation”.)
One is the landfill near Sungai Kembong that caused the Sungai Semenyih water treatment plant to be closed temporarily due to high levels of ammonia in September.
In fact, this landfill had caught national attention in 2006 when a similar incident happened, causing two million people to be without water supply.
However, it takes a long time to properly rehabilitate a landfill, waste management specialist Dr Theng Lee Chong said, adding that the land concerned should not be developed in 20 to 30 years.
The basic steps are to cover the open dump with soil, conduct vegetation, drill holes through the dump to release gas, build drainage for diversion of rainwater as well as piping for the release of leachate.
Gas released from the landfill can either be used for flares or recovered to generate electricity while leachate collected will need to be treated separately.
He explained that a sanitary landfill required a proper set-up – a carefully selected location and soil which is of clay-like texture that has minimum permeability to prevent underground water contamination.
The landfill should also be properly engineered in accordance with geological and hydrogeological requirements.
Other must-have features include a synthetic geomembrane as a lining to prevent leakage, leachate collection pipes connecting to leachate treatment plant as well as gas pipes.
It must be maintained well; waste should be spread in layers and compacted.
Daily soil covering is required to make the waste less accessible to pests and vermin.
There will be no room for scavengers as all recyclable items should be retrieved before the waste reaches a sanitary landfill.
Scavengers can be employed as staff at the recycling centres.
However, there are only eight sanitary landfills in the country compared with 176 operating landfill sites and numerous illegal dumpsites.
The sanitary landfills are located in Pahang (one), Selangor (three), Johor (one) and Sarawak (three).
“Waste management is a huge burden to the country while sorting the garbage from source is not often practised by the people here.
“The Government is spending a tremendous amount of money on waste management,” said Dr Theng.
The incinerator was a good option, he said, but added that many residents and NGOs were opposed to the idea of having an incinerator due to random, unproven information.
This is despite countries like Japan, Singapore and many European countries having used them for years.
It is learnt that there will be five mini incinerators in Malaysia – in Pulau Pangkor (construction completed, soon to be commissioned), Labuan (to be completed by year’s end but delayed), as well as Pulau Langkawi, Pulau Tioman and Cameron Highlands (all three should be ready next year).
Dr Theng said another problem was that there was little coordination between the ministries dealing with it.
According to him, solid waste management was under the purview of the Housing and Local Government Ministry, hazardous industrial waste under the Department of Environment, agricultural waste under the Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry and medical waste under the Health Ministry.
Dumps could become stinking time-bombs
The Star 1 Nov 10;
KUALA LUMPUR: It is a long-standing, stinking problem that will not go away. We have yet to find a safe way to dispose of the 19,000 tonnes or so of garbage that Malaysians produce each day.
All our trash now goes to 176 garbage tips all over the country – but only eight are sanitary landfills with pollution control features.
The others are more or less just open dumpsites which stink, pose health hazards, leak polluting liquids into groundwater and rivers, as well as emit combustible gases.
Yet another worry are the 114 closed landfills, almost all of them just open dumps. With no bottom linings to prevent noxious leachate from seeping out or piping system to vent gases, these are ticking time bombs.
With 16 landfills sitting near water intake points or the sea, another potential disaster lurks. We desperately need to clean up the mess.
Garbage disposal a heavy load for the authorities
The Star 1 Nov 10;
KUALA LUMPUR: Residents here produce 2,100 tonnes of garbage per day, 63,000 tonnes per month and 756,000 tonnes per year. The waste is sent to the Bukit Tagar landfill about 50km from the city.
Many do not know the amount of work and money that Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) and the Housing and Local Government Ministry puts into disposing the garbage.
The “journey” begins at 7am for Alam Flora Sdn Bhd workers as they collect waste from houses and designated bin points. It is then taken to the Taman Beringin transfer station in Kepong at about 11am.
At the station, the garbage is placed into huge trailers and taken to the Bukit Tagar landfill.
The landfill began operations in 2005 and is expected to last another 35 years. It has a capacity of 120 million tonnes of air space and occupies 1,700 acres. It was built after the closure of the Taman Beringin landfill.
Solid Waste Management Depart-ment director-general Datuk Dr Nadzri Yahya said RM35 per tonne is paid to the Taman Beringin transfer station and RM28.80 per tonne at the Bukit Tagar landfill.
“Collection and public cleansing by Alam Flora costs RM9.4mil for domestic and commercial wastes and the collection alone works up to RM5.3mil a month,” he added.
The task of maintaining a landfill is not easy.
At the end of each day, the waste has to be covered by soil while the gas produced has to be collected to produce electricity or flares.
The department is mulling other types of waste treatment facilities like the thermal treatment plant, which uses heat to treat waste.
Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung said that if incinerators and modern technology on the management of solid waste were in place, the lifespan of the landfills could be extended by more than 20 years,”
“Sixteen of the 292 landfields in the country had been closed because they were full.”
