Minister for Urban Well-Being, Housing and Local Government, Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahlan said in a press conference yesterday that Putrajaya is not chosen to be the place for incinerator because of “not enough garbage”.
The answer is going to make Johoreans wonder how Bukit Payung was chosen as a location for an incinerator since it is obvious that more solid waste is produced at southern part of Johore instead of the central and northern part of Johore.
It’s clear that if we want to reduce carbon footprint and cost of transferring majority of waste, we should not have the incinerator built at Bukit Payung, a remote area from central Johore.
If a second-tier city in Johore like Batu Pahat produces enough volume of waste to warrant the building of an incinerator, then definitely a first-tier city like greater JB area has more than enough waste produced daily for an incinerator to be built. Federal government must disclose if there is a plan to build more incinerators in Johore especially in the greater JB area for the public to monitor and comment.
Incinerator is not the best solution to resolve waste problem. Moreover, has the Johore state government and federal government ever considered all the methods to reduce waste before even considering having the so-called “waste to energy” plant? Obviously, the answer is NO.
In February 2011, the then Minister for Housing and Local Government, Datuk Seri Chor Chee Heung announced the move to get Malaysians to separate their household waste has been postponed from April 1 to 2013 due to low awareness among the public. (“Households need not separate trash until 2013” Sylvia Looi, 25/2/2011)
By October 2012, Chor Chee Heong was reported saying that waste segregation would finally begin in March 2013 at capital cities of every state, city councils and municipal councils, and hopefully the practice will be extended to all district councils by 2014.
However, in a written reply to Member of Parliament YB Ong Kian Ming regarding the issue, current Minister for Urban Well-Being, Housing and Local Government, Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahlan answered that, contractors are instructed to start waste segregation only at 1st September 2014. Furthermore, compulsory waste separation at source is again postponed to September 2015.
First of all, Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahlan needs to answer if his department had tried all methods in promoting and educating public about waste segregation and he must explain why pubic awareness is still low.
When most Malaysians do not even realize that we are having waste segregation at source campaign, it is ridiculous for Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahlan to say, “How long more do we have to wait until Malaysians learn to practice the recycling culture?”
I believe that most people would agree the government hasn’t done enough to promote waste segregation at source with the right method and it’s not right to accuse Malaysians not learning to practice recycling culture.
To make our waste useful by recycling, we have to first segregate food waste with other solid waste; yet, we have never done the food waste collection or look into the reuse of food waste while 45% of our municipal waste is food waste.
Furthermore, Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahlan suggested that with incinerator being built, the waste can be turned into energy which is useful, however, I wonder how much energy we would utilize to dry all the food waste before it can be burnt into energy.