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EU- 29 –
The opening ceremony of the EU-Asia
Solid Waste Management Conference was graced by YAB Dato’
Seri Ir. Hj. Mohammad Nizar
Jamaluddin, The Chief Minister of Perak
by the traditional
Malay Gong accompanied by H.E. Vincent Piket, Ambassador and Head of Delegation
of the European Commission to Nga Kor
Ming, Chairman
of Standing Committee on Education, Local Government and Housing and Public Transport, Kin Mun, Conference Director and Dato’ Dr. Ir. Abu Bakar
Jaafar, President, Association of Environmental
Consultants & Companies in (from
left to right) on 29-30 October 2008 at Impiana
Casuarina Hotel in countries South Africa, Iran and Laos have attended the conference
together with 320 Malaysian participants. YAB Dato’ Seri Ir. Hj. Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, The Chief Minister
of Perak officiated this auspicious event at the Banquet Hall of Perak Darul European Commission to Malaysia delivered a Special Address and
also YB Nga Kor Ming, Chairman of
Standing Committee on Education, Local Government and Housing and Public Transport, Perak
delivered the Welcoming
Address during the opening ceremony of the Conference. engineers) in charge of solid waste management ( Organisations (NGOs), institution of higher
learning and research institutions; representatives from the private sector involved in concessionaires, environmental consultants and
contractors providing various services such as equipment supplies, technology consultancy,
environmental engineering, waste audit and consultancy services etc. The conference
served as an intellectual platform and dialogue for EU-Asia solid waste management ( practices. The 2-day Conference included a
total of 7 sessions, with 3 parallel sessions. The Sessions are EU-Asia Solid
Waste Management Experience, Solid Waste Management; Technology Innovations for
Future Solid Waste Management; EU Policy and Regulatory Framework on Solid Waste
Management; Findings of International Project’ Economic Instrument and
Financing Methods and
Best Practices and Case Studies related to papers at the international conference, including
13 well known European speakers and 13 Asian speakers. Well known Asian speakers include: Housing and Local Government Sciences, Faculty of Science,
University of in
Consultants & Companies in Management, ICLEI European
Secretariat GmbH, Consultant, Danish Topic Centre on Waste
& Resources ( Operations Director, Waste &
Energy Department of RPS Consulting Engineers, Mr. Keith Newman, Director, Cayenne Limited, Head of Pollution & Climate
Team, Institute for European Environmental Policies (IEEP),
policy and substantial progress has been
made. Heavily polluting landfills and incinerators are being
cleaned up. New techniques have been developed for the treatment of
hazardous waste. Hazardous substances are being removed from vehicles and
electrical and electronic equipment. The levels of dioxins
and other emissions from incineration are being reduced. The waste management and recycling
sector has a high growth rate and has an estimated turnover of €100 billion in the entire EU. It is labour intensive and provides between 1.2 and 1.5 million jobs. With time, waste is increasingly seen as a valuable resource for industry. Approaches such as
reuse, recycling and energy recovery are starting to be applied to regulated wastes. Diversion of biodegradable waste
from
H.E.
Vincent Piket landfills
and increasing recycling and recovery are reducing greenhouse
Delegation
of the European challenges the world. Nevertheless, the unsustainable
trends in waste specially
relevant to the Asian region, where growing prosperity inevitably also means growing The
foundation of the EU regulatory structure on waste is the Waste Framework
Directive, adopted in 1975. It obliges Member States to ensure that waste
is managed properly and it establishes a hierarchy for waste management. This means
that, ideally, waste should be prevented and what cannot be prevented
should be re-used, recycled and recovered as much as feasible, with landfill being used as
little as possible. This legislative basis has delivered significant
environmental benefits and has resulted in making the recycling of waste part of normal
industrial practice. For example, at least 50% of paper and steel, 43% of glass and 40% of non-ferrous metals
produced in the EU are currently made out of recycled materials. Furthermore, the recycling of major materials and
diverting bio-waste from landfill and treating landfill gas has enabled EU industry to reduce
total greenhouse gas emissions by more than 5%. will play a key role in taking these
issues forward 5 are from steering committee. million Asia Pro Eco programme,
which ran from 2002-2006. Its successor programme,
the €90 million ‘SWITCH-Asia’ programme,
is focused on the region, mainly among Small and investment in knowhow
The President of the Association
of Environmental Consultants & Companies in at source” is the key solution that is necessarily
required in any efforts towards the creation of “waste recycling industry”
as envisaged in the Outline Perspective Plan (2001- 2010) (OPP3) of
articulated in the last two 5-year Malaysia
Plans. Consultative Meeting at Impiana FIRST ORDER OF POLICY its waste into at least three
separate streams: “perishable”, “toxic and hazardous waste”, and
“non-perishable”. In order to promote such an intervention, it is
recommended that every household is provided with the first set of 3- types of bin, “free”. Those
who collect and sort out “toxic and hazardous waste” from other streams of waste would be By the “Proximity Principle”, the supply of in-situ
composters be introduced to those households with landed-properties in order to recover their
“perishable waste” as “compost-materials” which could be marketed for plant-nursery and
landscaping. anaerobic digestion technology could be introduced
in natural gas “renewable energy”. Such an
innovation THIRD ORDER OF POLICY, REGULATORY,
For non-perishable waste, it could further sort out
at source, should there be a market demand for recyclables such as “plastics”, “paper”,
“glass”, and “metals” including aluminium and
steel. To create demand for such recyclables, it
would require another set of policy interventions. There is a limit to the extent of which certain
types of waste could be recycled. Instead of these materials be sent to landfill for disposal, it is
highly recommended that “resource recovery” and “waste-to-energy” plants be
promoted and established. Thus, a very attractive electricity tariff ought to be given to such facilities,
which essentially generate “renewable energy”. FIFTH ORDER OF INTERVENTION As illustrated in Figure 1 (bottom of page), there
shall be no more landfills, sanitary or otherwise, to be built. Instead, those “unwanted”
materials should be put in “repository”; these materials would be easily “recoverable” once they
command some economic values. CONCLUSION In short, the Conference has come to a successful
conclusion by having all the invited stakeholders Move
towards a sustainable management of “costly” solid waste into “valuable” “materials” and “renewable energy”.
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