RUBBISH disposal is a lucrative business in urban areas, so much so that we have companies that are eager to propose incinerators to help us deal with the problem.

After all, Japan and Germany are big-time users of this technology, so it has to be good right?

In 2004, the Kuantan Municipal Council built an incinerator for research and development purpose.

That incinerator design consumed about 120 litres of diesel to incinerate only one tonne of waste, due to the high water content of local waste.

That is essentially the difference between Japan and us when it comes to incinerator technology — Japan does not waste good diesel to burn rubbish like we would.

In order to utilise this technology properly, we really need to separate our rubbish first. Otherwise, burning wet rubbish requires adding fuel to the waste and that means we are burning money to dispose of waste.

It should be no problem to force Malaysians to start separating their rubbish, as a provision has been included under the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act for this purpose.

The clause just has not been activated by the Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister.

However, rubbish separation is not just a responsibility for households but markets, restaurants, factories, shopping malls and office towers too.

Most businesses would not have the means to enforce rubbish separation, and there is that tricky issue about being held responsible for the mess if someone decides to dump unsorted rubbish into your wastebin.

This is a headache our Government will have no answer for because there are only so many things laws can deal with.

People’s attitudes need to be changed for rubbish separation to work, and we just do not have that sort of civic consciousness in our society.

So, we have a problem separating rubbish at source but our Government is still keen on incinerators. Will that be a problem?

Well, we already have several incinerators operating in Malaysia — located in Langkawi, Pangkor, Tioman, Labuan and Cameron Highlands, to name a few.

According to a Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) study on incinerators done in 2013, incinerators “had failed due to faulty design, improper operation, poor maintenance, high diesel usage and waste characteristics, due to high moisture content of 60% to 70%.”

The existing incinerator operators know this is a huge problem and seek to mitigate it by separating the rubbish as best they can.

For example, the Pangkor incinerator operator segregates moist food waste and dispose of it at an adjacent landfill but the process is not perfect as the waste is already mixed by the time it gets to the incinerator.

This in turn causes the burning to be imperfect and smog is released into the air.

When it comes to incinerators in general, of equal concern is the residual ash from the burning process with possible by-products of toxins depending on what sort of rubbish got burnt (we would not know since rubbish segregation does not happen here). Does our Government have a programme to store and contain such waste in a safe area?

The same UKM study actually notes the following: “research has shown that in communities where incinerator plants are built, its long-term effects come in the form of reproductive dysfunction, neurological damage and other health effects are known to occur at very low exposures to many of the metals, and other pollutants released by incineration facilities.”

Are the authorities and all the proponents for incinerators really sure this sort of technology is suitable for the Klang Valley given the problem we have of even separating and sorting our rubbish?

What do we do when the incinerator has reached its capacity and unable to cater to escalating waste due to population growth?

Do we build more incinerators or do we advocate a sustainable method of reducing waste through Zero Waste Management when the amount of waste is reduced significantly and substantially?

There are private companies that are eager to explore such methods of turning our waste into useful products if they are given the chance.

Example technology includes anaerobic digestion that is a simple, natural breakdown of organic matter, which produces biogas — a fuel that can be burned to produce both heat and electricity — and methane, a substance that can be used as vehicle fuel.

The process produces a by-product called digestate, which can be used as fertiliser as it is rich in nutrients.

Indeed a whole new industry can be spawned from such recycling initiatives, which can be equally lucrative, as the by-products are actually useful.

But such possibilities are being overlooked in favour of implementing incinerator technology where we will be using fuel to burn away the rubbish.

Whatever it is, so long as the process is not looked at in detail and the issues I have highlighted not resolved, our Government can expect to face resistance from each and every resident group where the project is proposed next.

> Mak Khuin Weng cannot afford to send our politicians overseas for ‘lawatan sambil belajar’ trips, so he hopes this article would suffice in terms of his advocacy for recycling.

Authorities unveiled a new mobile incinerator that will be used to destroy unwanted or expired prescription pills in the future.

State Police Lt. Michael Baylous, Putnam Sheriff Steve Deweese and U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin hoisted large orange buckets filled to the brim with a mixed assortment of pills and dumped them, one by one, into the smoking maw of the black incinerator Tuesday afternoon at the Putnam County Courthouse in Winfield.

The pills were from the 2.5 tons collected Saturday as part of the National Prescription Drug Take Back Day.

Saturday’s event was the last event sponsored by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Goodwin said. The federal agency has conducted take-back days since 2010 because there weren’t any rules on properly disposing of unwanted or expired medications.

The DEA began working toward safe disposal rules after the first take-back day. The final rule was issued this year, allowing DEA-registered hospitals, pharmacies, long-term care facilities and others dealing in pharmaceuticals to modify their registrations to become authorized collection sites, according to the DEA’s website. Law enforcement agencies also may continue collecting pills.

Goodwin said when the events began there were no standalone drop boxes for medications. Now, both Kanawha and Putnam sheriff’s offices operate collection sites in Charleston and Winfield.

“We’ll continue on,” Deweese said. “We’ll support ourselves on it.”

The Putnam Sheriff’s Office collected some 221 pounds of medications in the last event.

Goodwin said the five mobile incinerator units were purchased with funds from the 2004 settlement with Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin…

The American-owned firm behind the Parc Adfer waste treatment facility has submitted its planning application to Flintshire County Council.

Energy-from-waste specialist Wheelabrator has submitted plans for its proposed 200,000 tonnes per year capacity incineration plant on the edge of Deeside industrial estate.

The company was named as the preferred bidder for a 25 year contract to treat household waste on behalf of North Wales Residual Waste Treatment Project (NWRWTP) – the five council partnership which includes Flintshire, Isle of Anglesey, Conwy, Denbighshire and Gwynedd.

The firm hopes that planning consent could be granted during the first half of 2015, allowing construction work to commence late in the year.

If successful Wheelabrator expect the facility to be operational by 2018, the site will the then supply waste heat through steam pipes to nearby industrial or commercial users, as well as incinerate tonnes of household waste, diverting it from landfill sites.

According to the five councils, the facility will help them towards meeting the Welsh Government target to recycle 70% of waste by 2025.

Non-Partisan Association mayoral candidate Kirk LaPointe is trash talking political rival Vision Vancouver for apparently doing nothing to stop the building of a new garbage incinerator in Metro Vancouver.

“[Mayor Gregor Robertson’s] plan to build an incinerator without community consultation, without transparency and without actual proven technology is an attack on Vancouver,” LaPointe said at a news conference Thursday.

But the fact is the mayor and Vision Vancouver are staunchly opposed to an incinerator and have made that position very clear to Metro Vancouver, the organization that will decide sometime in 2015 how and where to deal with the region’s garbage.

“We are completely opposed to incineration… it’s great that [the NPA] now also seems to share that position,” Coun. Andrea Reimer said Thursday, adding it’s “frustrating” that the NPA hasn’t come out with any new policies.

Council voted in 2013 to consider using a piece of property at the foot of Main Street and Kent Avenue South for a waste centre, but only if it meets strict environmental and health criteria.

The city’s website states it “does not support garbage incineration facilities, and would not allow the burning of garbage at the proposed facility under any circumstances.”

One of the technologies the city said it would consider is gasification, which has fewer emissions and converts waste to synthetic natural gas.

But LaPointe is also strongly opposed to gasification in city limits, saying it is an unproven technology that poses environmental and health concerns.

Instead, LaPointe supports unspecified landfill options, recycling options and sorting technologies.

Regardless, Metro Vancouver has not yet chosen where to put a waste plant.

“The NPA believes strongly in fighting to keep our air clean and our citizens healthy, but Vancouver’s waste-to-energy plans are likely to generate more emissions and harmful chemicals into the atmosphere,” LaPointe says. “An incinerator or gasification plant is simply not a green option. There are significant health and environmental challenges with both options.”
He says Gregor Robertson and Vision Vancouver, the supposed defenders of all things “green,” are doing nothing to stop the building of a costly new garbage incinerator in Metro Vancouver and are proposing their own “gasification” plant at Main St and Kent Ave. “They have failed to defend the interests of Vancouverites.”

LaPointe says he and an NPA government will fight the plans no matter where the incinerator might be built, and instead concentrate on ways to increase reducing, reusing and recycling the City’s solid waste.
“The only thing less green than burning or “gasifying” garbage in Vancouver is using fossil fuels to ship it elsewhere for burning. We share our air with the region’s other municipalities.”

LaPointe says fiscal concerns accompany the health and emissions worries. “The construction of a new incinerator represents significant risks for taxpayers,” he says, noting its cost of construction has increased by almost $50 million to the current $517 million estimate. “Vision Vancouver’s failure to address the cost issue again demonstrates its failure to manage the City financially.”

The Burnaby waste-to-energy incinerator, which loses money annually, is expected to lose another $16 million in this year.

LaPointe says Metro Vancouver has publicly identified three potential sites for a solid waste incinerator, while six additional, secret sites are under consideration. The City of Vancouver has also proposed a gasification facility in South Vancouver and that has residents concerned.

Jay Jagpal, NPA Park Board candidate and South Vancouver resident, says: “My community is very concerned about the lack of transparency around this project, with its potential to have an impact on so many people. This is typical behaviour of Vision and Vancouverites deserve better.”

Metro Vancouver’s proposed Bylaw 280, a plan to raise costs on waste disposal, is a key step in subsidizing these plants. An NPA government would work to prevent the bylaw from coming into force.

Early this week, the Obama administration unveiled historic environmental rules to cut carbon pollution from power plants by 30% by 2030. The rules, announced formally by the Environmental Protection Agency, are the first time any president has moved to regulate carbon pollution from power plants – the largest single source of carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change.

“For the sake of our families’ health and our kids’ future, we have a moral obligation to act on climate,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said. “When we do, we’ll turn risks on climate into business opportunity. We’ll spur innovation and investment, and we’ll build a world-leading clean energy economy.”

The proposed rules also would result in reductions in particle pollutions, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide by more than 25 percent, which EPA officials say would prevent in 6,600 premature deaths and 150,000 asthma attacks in children per year once fully implemented. The health improvements also would result in the avoidance of 490,000 missed work or school days, which the EPA says equals savings of $93 billion a year.

The proposal, although promoted fully by the president and Democratic leadership in Congress, ran into immediate opposition from business lobbies, Republicans in Congress and some Democrats facing tough election battles. The coal industry – which will be hit hardest by the new rules – said the regulations would hurt the economy and lead to power outages.

“If these rules are allowed to go into effect, the administration, for all intents and purposes, is creating America’s next energy crisis,” the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity said.

The problem is, the climate crisis will wipe us all out if we don’t do something big about it. What sort of world do we want our children to live in, or their children, or their children’s children? And for that matter, when does our planet just become completely unlivable? Will people believe that the time is right for a change then? No one ever said tackling a problem like climate change was going to be easy–it’s going to cost us a lot of money, effort, and yes, in some cases maybe even jobs (in many cases, it will actually create new jobs). But if we ignore it, or if we don’t do enough to combat it, the problem will only get worse. Isn’t the health of our planet more important than money? Than jobs? If we don’t figure something out, then someday money and jobs won’t matter anymore–because we’ll have completely destroyed our home, the place that allows us to live at all. It’s about time the U.S. got on board with climate change reform–especially since we’re one of the largest offenders. So bravo, Mr. Obama. Let’s just hope it’s not too late to make a difference.