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The Star Online > Nation Landfills pose
environmental hazard and require time to rehabilitate 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 “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 It is learnt that there will be
five mini incinerators in 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. |
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