FORUM

Waste Disposal
Group Members: Syahmi, Firdaus (Team Leader), Azamudin, Luqman.

Chairman: Welcome to Waste World: A Forum on Waste Disposal. To start off the discussion tonight, we have with us Encik Azam from the Department of Environment (DOE), who will give his views on the pollution problem in Malaysia. Azam: Good evening. A major problem that our country is facing, is how to dispose of the large amount of rubbish we produce. On the average every day, Malaysians living in the rural area throw away 0.6 kg of rubbish each while those in the urban areas discard about 1.35 kg. In total, our country generates 15 000 tonnes of waste in a single day. In 10 days, we would be able to bury some of our highest buildings in rubbish! Chairman: Thats certainly a lot of waste. Where does it all go? Azam: Most of it goes to the landfills. Some are burn in incinerators and a small amount is composted. A lot of rubbish is also disposed of through illegal means such as open burning and dumping into rivers and other prohibited areas. Chairman: Yes, Mr Luqman, Im sure you have something to say about that? Mr Luqman is the Chairman of Residents Against Garbage (RAG). Luqman: Yes Mr Chairman. I wish to point out that the landfills are inadequate, outdated and unsafe. Azam: I agree with you. At the rate were going, 80% of our landfills will be full by 2015. Where we are going to dump our rubbish, then? Furthermore, 90% of our landfills are the open type. This means that they are not equipped to protect the environment from pollution. Chairman: How did this state of affairs come about? Azam: Most of these landfills were stated decades ago, and were sited at the jungle edges, far away from the cities. But, with rapid urban expansion, we are facing the problem with the environment which we didnt in the past. Fortunately, the newer sanitary landfills have a treatment pond as well as a protective layer to catch leachate so that it does not get into public pipes or contaminate underground water.

Chairman: So, Encik Azam, I suppose more and more of these sanitary landfills are being created? Azam: Not quite. Finding vacant land for new landfills is a problem too. Moreover, if the landfills are sited too far away from the towns, transporting the rubbish there would be costly. Thats why the government is investing RM2 billion to build a modern incinerator in Broga, Selangor. That should solve our waste disposal woes. Syahmi: I dont think its that simple. Chairman: Yes, Encik Syahmi? Encik Syahmi is a representative of Sahabat Alam Malaysia. Doesnt SAM agree with the incinerator project? Syahmi: We think there are better alternatives. There has been a lot of controversy over incinerator globally, one of which is the amount of the energy that will be used up. Incinerators are expensive to build and to maintain. Moreover, well still need landfills to bury the ash. This ash contains concentrated amounts of heavy metals and dioxins which, when buried, will eventually leach into ground. Luqman: Thats right. Recent studies in the United Kingdom, Germany and United States have indicated that there is no safe level of dioxin. Dioxin has been linked to several types of cancer, birth defects, reproductive dysfunction, neurological damage and learning problems. Many air pollutants released by incinerators have been known to accumulate in and on food crops, such as leafy vegetables. Chairman: Encik Syahmi, you mentioned better alternatives just a while ago. Would you care to elaborate? Syahmi: Certainly. I think we should focus on our efforts on minimizing the amount of waste produced. In other words, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. More attention should be paid to home composting. People should be educated through the various media not to be wasteful, but to give away useable things they no longer need. We should never throw away anything which can be recycled. In doing this, we can hope for a cleaner and healthier environment. Chairman: On that note, we end our forum tonight. We thank our entire panelist for their presence here to discuss the problem of waste disposal. Good Night.

(Source: English Textbook Form 5, page 174-176)