The KL Tak Nak Incinerator group says that an alternative to building incinerators should be to focus on reducing and recycling waste. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Nuradilla Noorazam, March 14, 2016.Kepong residents are fighting an uphill battle to stop a proposed waste-to-energy incinerator project being built near their homes, citing environmental and health risks.
The 1,000-tonne incinerator is slated to be built at Taman Beringin, Kepong, just four kilometres away from the Taman Tasik Indah housing area.
The movement to stop the RM800 million incinerator began in 2013 and was spearheaded by the KL Tak Nak Incinerator group.
As recently as last month, the group handed over a memorandum signed by 12, 498 petitioners to Parliament.
The group’s chairman Lee Chong Tek, 59, said that residents were racing against time, as the project’s tender process will start by the middle of the year.
He told The Malaysian Insider that the Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Rahman Dahlan recently visited the project site with the group.
The group was informed that the current waste transfer station at Taman Beringin had exceeded its capacity of 1,700 tonnes and that the proposed incinerator would help manage the disposal of Klang Valley’s 3,000 tonnes worth of daily waste.
“He said there is no choice but for the incinerator to be built because the Bukit Tagar sanitary landfill is reaching full capacity while the amount of waste transported there every day is increasing,” said Lee.
“However, we are worried about having an incinerator too near to the housing area because they have the tendency to produce heavy, black smoke and release a strong stench,” he said.
He alleged that existing incinerators in the country were badly-managed and causing environmental pollution.
“One does not have to look far, but just observe the incinerators in Cameron Highlands, Langkawi and Pulau Pangkor that operate in substandard conditions, and with a lack of oversight and management,” he said.
“It is very important for the authorities to make sure that the incinerators are properly maintained. These incinerators are polluting the environment and we cannot risk the same happening in a highly-populated area such as Kepong,” he said.
The group said that they had posted on their Facebook site a short video of what is purported to be an incinerator in Cameron Highlands releasing black smoke into the air.
Comments on the video posted showed that residents were worried that a similar occurrence would take place in Kepong.
“If we learn to reduce our waste, we would not be producing as much as we are now and we would not need an incinerator. Hence why our group in recent years have focused more on reduce, reuse and recycle programs in the neighborhood as well as spreading awareness on the incinerator project and its implications to the quality of our lives and the environment,” added Lee.
Last month, the group organised a campaign to spread awareness on the project, where some 15 members shaved their heads bald over answers given by Rahman to a list of questions they had sent him regarding the project, calling his answers “insufficient and unsatisfactory.”
Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming also attended the event in support of the movement.
When asked whether the campaign had prompted the authorities to act, Lee said the group continued to be ignored. – March 14, 2016.
Comments
Please refrain from nicknames or comments of a racist, sexist, personal, vulgar or derogatory nature, or you may risk being blocked from commenting in our website. We encourage commenters to use their real names as their username. As comments are moderated, they may not appear immediately or even on the same day you posted them. We also reserve the right to delete off-topic comments.