PRIVATISATION - OR - PIRATISATION?

Introduction

Rubbish is like an endemic disease with uncollected waste choking our rivers, and littering our highways and byways.  The vast proportion of the waste that does get collected ends up on a dumpsite where it contaminates the environment and causes public health concerns. For, in spite of the billions of Ringgit of public money that has been spent on the collection and disposal of our Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) over the years, there are still only 8 sanitary landfills servicing the whole nation.

As 2020 approaches it is obvious that in terms of public cleansing and waste management, we are still in the dark ages when compared to developed countries.

Back in 1999 the European Union issued the European Landfill Directive for its member states with the overall aim of preventing the negative effects of landfills on the environment.  

In these developed countries it is well understood that landfills result in pollution of surface water, groundwater, soil and air, and have a negative effect on the global environment in terms of contributing to the greenhouse effect, as well as presenting risks to public health. There is also the recognition that even sanitary landfills can become compromised after a period of time and offer no guarantee when it comes to keeping the toxic residues produced by MSW from entering the ecosystem.

This legislation forced the member nations to reassess how waste is handled and disposed of and by eliminating landfills the European countries have shifted the paradigm of how waste is regarded.

And herein lies the crux of the issue in Malaysia: Historically waste has always been regarded as an expensive problem, a natural bi-product of our consumer society.  This is however an erroneous perception, for in reality waste is a renewable national asset, a storehouse of resources that can be reused, recycled and recovered to the benefit of the environment and society in general.

Yet, in spite of lip-service to the notion of reclaiming, reusing and recycling, the government’s master plan for waste disposal is still totally dependent on landfills, and despite the huge amounts of public funds that have been diverted into waste management, we haven’t made any progress in solving our waste problem.

In contrast, the European model of recovering as much of the waste as possible has spawned a multi-million dollar industry.

The new Act

The 2007 Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act was finally enacted in September 2011. It transfers responsibility for solid waste management and public cleansing from the Local Authorities to the Federal Government. As a result, new federal institutions including the Department of National Solid Waste Management and the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation were established.

This Act claims to bring solid waste management (SWM) in line with global state-of-the-art practices at no additional cost to the public. It includes regulation and enforcement tools as well as imposing higher responsibilities on the stakeholders. The Act also enabled the privatization of SWM. 

This privatization was bulldozed through parliament in much the same way as the recent Peaceful Assembly Bill and the development of Kg. Baru were hastily passed through the house with little debate, despite a lack of support from the majority of the people who will be affected by it.

When we take a close look at the Malaysian government’s strategy for implementing the act we find that the master plan is almost totally committed to building sanitary landfills to cope with the situation. Of course sanitary landfills are better than dumpsites, but it is clear that the same old mindset is still at play; the one that regards waste as a costly problem and not as a constant supply of untapped and renewable resources. 

This shows at best how misguided the Malaysian government is in trying to provide a world-class service.  At worst it illustrates that the solid waste management strategy has been developed with the interest of the industrial players in mind rather than what is best for the environment and society in general.

Lack of transparency and accountability

There is strong evidence of mismanagement and a lack of transparency in our national waste management strategy. Take, for example, the Bukit Tagar sanitary landfill in the north of Selangor, which is managed by KUB-Berjaya Enviro Sdn. Bhd. This 1,700-acre site was reportedly chosen because of its isolation from important groundwater aquifers thus eliminating the risk of water pollution.  However sceptics claim that the choice of location was determined by the then minister of housing’s desire to help out a friend who had already acquired the land thinking that the new airport was going to be located nearby. Since KLIA was subsequently built in Sepang, the minister’s friend was left holding a pretty worthless piece of real estate.  Then, or so the story goes, the government announced the closures of the Taman Beringen and Air Hitam dumps, in Kepong and Puchong, and acquired the land from the minister’s friend to build the Bukit Tagar sanitary landfill.  In addition to the cost of the land, the government reportedly handed out RM400 million to build the landfill.

On top of that, there’s the cost to DBKL for using Bukit Tagar to consider. At present the tipping fee at Bukit Tagar is RM28.80 per ton. By this time next year it will have risen by a staggering 58.7 percent to RM49 per ton. Then there’s the cost of transporting all that waste 50 kms north, and we mustn’t forget the cost of collecting the waste; the cost of transporting it to the Taman Beringen transfer station and the compacting fee.

According to KUB-Berjaya Enviro’s statistics, the Bukit Tagar landfill receives about 3,000 tons of waste per day.  However, if this amount of waste was sent to a Waste to Energy plant and processed to extract its latent energy, it could supply up to 25MW of energy - enough to power around 50,000 modern 3 bedroom homes using 2 air conditioners, a fridge and a television. Because Waste to Energy management strategy is sustainable it’s bankable and can be funded by private venture capital. In addition, the different revenue streams that are created, which make it sustainable, ensure that tipping fees can be kept at an affordable level.  

Immediately after the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management bill was accepted by the cabinet, the Housing and Local Government Minister, Datuk Chor Chee Heung announced the award of contracts to three companies: Alam Flora, Southern Waste Management and E-Idaman. Besides payment from the local authorities, Chor said the companies had not been doing a good job because of a lack of funds and so they were also awarded between RM500mil and RM600mil a year from the Federal Government.This decision was made public just one day after the legislation came into force and, to the best of my knowledge, without any open tender exercise having taken place.  

The Act also raises issues of accountability, for under it, the minister’s decision is final and cannot be challenged in court. Furthermore, the legislation places all decision making in the hands of the Director General of the Waste Department, with no checks and balances to ensure that abuse of power does not occur.

The ‘red tape’ associated with the Act creates a barrier to local innovators and new players trying to enter the industry. For example, the National Waste Committee, headed by the deputy prime minister, is supposed to meet quarterly to look out for new ideas, and technology that would enhance and innovate the waste industry. All potential players wanting to enter the industry or suggestions on new technology must go before the committee for consideration.  However, I am reliably informed, that the National Waste Committee hasn’t met for the past year. Therefore, nothing gets done.  This is a classic ‘Catch 22’ situation, and hardly an incentive to develop local technologies. 

On the other hand, One German company who has been given approval to build biological composting plants are using a technology that, as far as I know, has not been proven with our waste profile.  I’m not implying by any means that they are not doing a good job, but I’m sure there are Malaysian companies that could do an equally good job if they had been given the opportunity.

In effect Malaysia’s solid waste management system operates like a cartel, with only a few, select industry players getting contracts.  Private companies and individuals offering green technology solutions are constantly being sidelined.

Financial mismanagement

The privatisation of solid waste management comes with an additional cost of about RM250 million just to cover administrative costs. Waste disposal is already an expensive business with billions of Ringgit of the public’s money being spent to: develop new landfills, operate and maintain existing landfills, and to close old ones, therefore these new administrative charges will place an additional financial burden on the public.

With all the decision-making and purchasing power residing with the Director General, How can we be sure that the people are getting the best deal?  The short answer is we cannot!  And in the light of the government’s gross overspending highlighted in the recent Auditor General’s report, the public can be forgiven for being suspicious that financial manipulation is in play.

Bin buying is one area where financial mismanagement seems to have taken place. Following privatisation, the government ordered 70,000 waste bins to be dispersed to householders and the price of each bin was tagged at around RM260. This would mean additional public expenditure of RM18.2 million. However, when bought in bulk, these bins can be procured for as little as RM88 each, even my local hardware store sells them for RM150  - a lot less than the government is paying.

Wasting money in the waste industry is not a new phenomenon. Over the years, successive governments have bought expensive technology that has proven not to work with local waste parameters.  Our spending on incinerators is a case in point.  Let’s take the fiasco of the Labuan incinerator as an example of what I mean.

In the 1990s, George Kent (Malaysia) Berhad, were given a multi-million Ringgit contract to build waste incinerators for the islands of Pangkor, Langkawi, Tioman and Labuan. The Labuan incinerator alone cost RM40 million and was written-off without running for even one day. In fact, all of the incinerators were scrapped due to faulty design, high maintenance costs and operating expenditure.  In plain language this means that the technology was unsuitable for Malaysian waste. 

The incinerators that were chosen were designed to run without the need for auxiliary fuel but this wasn’t viable because of the high moisture content of the waste (60-70%).  This bumped-up the operating expenditure enormously as an auxiliary fuel such as gas or diesel would be needed to actually burn the waste instead of the waste itself being the only fuel required. This is a classic case of not doing enough research before buying technology.

However, instead of learning from this costly mistake, the government went ahead and commissioned 5 new incinerators designed by XCN Technology, for Langkawi (100 tons a day), Labuan (50 tons), Cameron Highlands (40 tons), Pangkor (20 tons) and Tioman (10 tons). The costs range from RM20.3mil to RM68.4mil. Only the Langkawi plant will be a waste-to-energy facility, capable of generating 1MW of electricity.

Despite reassurances from Datuk Dr. Nadzri Yahaya, who is Director General of the Department of National Solid Waste Management, that these new incinerators have been custom designed to cope with the high moisture content and to run with much lower operating expenditure, it is unlikely that the tipping fee alone will be sufficient to operate these new incinerators. That means higher assessment charges or a yet another subsidy, which ultimately will come from the pockets of householders and taxpayers.

By 2020 we will be spending at least RM20 billion of the public’s money on this industry with little or no accountability.

Obsession with landfills

The decision to continue with landfills as the main avenue of waste disposal also makes a mockery out of the river cleaning programme as even sanitary landfills cannot guarantee that leachate will not eventually enter the water table.  This was highlighted during Hari Raya 2010 when leachate from the Sg. Kembong dumpsite entered the river and caused the closure of the Semenyih water treatment plant leaving 300,000 households (1.2 million people) without water during the festive season.

Landfill advocates are always quick to explain the virtues of sanitary landfills. It is true that some companies are now collecting landfill methane and are generating electricity.  However what they do not mention is that locally developed Resource Recovery/Waste to Energy technology generates 5 times the amount of electricity and comes with the added bonus of keeping the land clear of waste, as the waste itself is processed and the energy inside it recovered for public use.

Other landfill companies are covering old landfills with expensive solar panels in order to generate electricity for the nation. However, if these old landfills were mined instead, the energy recovered from the waste would supply the national grid with renewable energy and restore the land to be used for other, more positive, purposes.

Just to give you some idea of the hidden cost of closing old landfills: the government has already given Cypark Resources Berhad more than RM400 million to close 17 landfills.  Closure entails covering these old sites with soil.

Time to come clean

It is now time to question the motives that drive decision-making in the waste management industry and not just in terms of federal accountability.

Even though the Penang State government didn’t sign the privatisation agreement they still need money from the Federal Government in order to implement their waste management programme.  In Penang’s case they have decided to buy an untried solution using overseas technology. In order to pay for this scheme the state government needed Northern Corridor money and in so doing needed to get approval from the EPU and Pemandu. On further investigation it would appear that their mechanism of decision making also involved issuing contracts to friends and close associates in much the same way that the non opposition states have been operating all this time.

It’s time the government and the local authorities started explaining themselves and answering some very pertinent questions:

Why doesn’t the government have a KPI to reduce landfills when we know that landfills are not the best solution and our continued use of them will act as a barrier to achieving fully developed status?

Why has the MACC not investigated, what appear to be many examples of gross mismanagement and overspending within the industry?

Why have the decision-makers decided to ignore international trends and refuse to seriously consider Waste to Energy options, which are cheaper to build and operate and are fully sustainable?

Why does the National Solid Waste Department continue to undermine local industry rather than supporting it by approving the appointment of foreign consultants who bring in their own technologies at the expense of local companies using homegrown technology?

Why are contracts still awarded without passing through a transparent tender process?

Why hasn’t the government implemented Agenda 21, which calls on governments to adopt national strategies for sustainable development? It specifically states that these strategies should be developed as a result of working partnerships with international organizations, business, regional, state, provincial and local governments, non-governmental organisations and citizens’ groups.

Lastly, Why is waste management still under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government when it would appear to be more appropriate to move it to the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water? 

Power to Malaysia

Indian engineer honored for ‘waste-to-energy’ technology

By J.V. Lakshmana Rao from www.indiatribunal.com

Centre right: K.S. Sivaprasad who invented the waste to wealth technology. Centre left: Kamarul Zaman Abdul Kadir - the Malaysian entrepreneur who saw its potential.

Chicago: Planned, designed and executed on the patented technology developed by an Indian engineer, K.S. Sivaprasad, a “waste-to-energy” plant of Malaysia has won an international award given for top renewable energy plants in the world.

K.S. Sivaprasad was in Chicago and received the award during the annual conference of the power industry of America, “Electric Power,” at Rosemont Convention Center on May 9.

Speaking to India Tribune, Sivaprasad, who has done India proud, said that his plant was one of the six top renewable energy plants in the world selected for the award by Power, the leading magazine in the US, in the power sector. The other five plants were — a geothermal plant, a solar energy plant and a biomass plant in the US, and a wind energy plant and a biomass energy plant in Europe. “Ours is the only plant outside the developed Western world and also the only plant dealing with municipal waste,” he said.

He said his “waste-to-energy” plant, the technology of which was patented in India but erected in Malaysia was environmentally safe and met all the anti-pollution standards. The special feature of the plant was that it had built-in pollution abatement mechanism that would effectively control the pollution and stood in conformity with stringent international emission standards.

He said that the technology for the “waste-to-energy” plant was based on the usage of the municipal waste which was converted into clean burning fuel known as refuse derived fuel (RDF) for use in boilers for steam and power generation. It was developed by him and patented in India.

The construction of RDF power plant, he said, was taken up in Malaysia by a joint venture company — Core Competencies Sdn Bhd — with a capacity to handle 700 tons of municipal waste a day and generate 8 MW power. After meeting its consumption of 3 MW, the balance 5 MW was being supplied to the national grid. He now held the dual positions of director and technical advisor of Core Competencies Sdn Bhd.

He said commissioned in 2009, the Kajang waste-to-energy plant, which was located 13 miles from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, was perhaps the first of its kind to use municipal solid waste (MSW). It served the twin objectives of environmentally friendly disposal of municipal solid waste and generation of renewable power.

He said: “Everyday the municipal waste is processed and energy is generated without accumulation of the polluting waste, which is a source of public health hazard. The plant also helps freeing the urban land from being used as landfills.”

Explaining how the plant was being operated, he said: “The pre-processing of the municipal waste enables recovery of recyclable materials like metals, plastics, fiber materials, and separation of wet organic matter enabling the further digestion process to release methane-rich biogas for firing the boiler to enhance power generation, thus maximizing the extraction of energy from the waste.”

Claiming that the operating area of the plant was free from causing any kind of pollution, he said the municipal waste was brought by trucks, weighed, and placed in a pit. The pit was designed to hold more than day’s stock and the whole area was covered and sprayed with an enzyme to deodorize the air. The air around the pit was constantly evacuated allowing fresh air to come in. Mechanical cranes were being used to mix wastes coming from different areas to get a measure of uniform composition, and bulky materials were removed before feeding the waste to the plant. The wet organic materials separated from the wastes were also used for power generation, he added.

Sivaprasad said: “When the first oil crisis struck the world in the early seventies, the search for alternative sources of energy began all over the world. Municipal waste was identified as a source of energy by the US government and efforts began to convert waste into a clean burning fuel. I started working on this concept to translate it into a working energy producing unit by setting up a pilot-scale plant in Bangalore. On successful performance of this unit, I obtained patent for this technology.”

Asked why this technology was not used and taken advantage of in India where heaps of municipal wastes were being dumped everywhere in rural and urban areas, he said that he made an attempt. But official apathy, red-tape and other constraints came in the way of his effort to set up a plant. Meanwhile Malaysia showed interest and the plant had attracted the eye of the world.

He said that he was happy that global recognition for his Indian “waste-to-energy” technology came through Malaysia. The award was presented in a glittering ceremony held in E. Donaldson Convention Center in Rosemont. Shivaprasad, who is the director and technical adviser and Kamarul Zaman, president of the company, received the award.

Still very active and agile at the age of 80 years, Shivaprasad, is a graduate in mechanical engineering from Guindy Engineering College of Chennai. He worked as chief engineer of DCM group of companies and set up industrial units, including captive power plants in India, before he moved to Malaysia. He hails from Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu.

TO READ THE ARTICLE ABOUT THE WASTE TO ENERGY PLANT THAT APPEARED IN THE DECEMBER 2010 EDITION OF POWER MAGAZINE CLICK HERE

A Star Performance?

I got pretty incensed over The Star newspaper's special reports on garbage this week. In fact I was so peed-off I even wrote them a letter which I'm sharing here.

I am writing in response to the special reports about waste management that appeared in the Nation section of your newspaper on November 1st and 2nd.

While I applaud any attempt to inform the public about this serious social and environmental problem, I was appalled to discover that the series of articles you ran were biased in favour of the politico-corporate cartel that has been running this industry for years. There was no mention at all of the other initiatives that are already taking place in the country which deal with municipal solid waste from a different perspective.

The articles rightly pointed out the problems associated with landfills but to suggest that incinerators are the only option is a best miseading and at worst a deliberate attempt to keep the rate-paying public misinformed.

Incinerator technology is very expensive to build and it operates on traditional non-renewable fuel which means daily running costs are not only high, but they are also unstable due to fluctuations in the global oil price.

A lot of countries that adopted incinerator technology are now moving towards a waste to energy approach to solve municipal waste problems. This approach regards garbage as a valuable resource and reclaims as much as possible in the form of reuseable items and an alternative and renewable industrial fuel which can also be used to generate electricity.

My concern is that there was no mention of this in the so-called in-depth report Don't you think the rate-paying public deserve to be told that there are alternative ways of approaching waste management that are cheaper and environmentally cleaner?

Dirty Business Addendum

Way back in March, I had a bit of a rant about how the Selangor State government had decided to spend RM6.5 million of taxpayers money to state controlled Worldwide Landfills Sdn. Bhd.to close the Sg. Kembong landfill, when 18 months earlier Chief Minister, Khalid Ibrahim, had already authorised the rehabilitation of the same landfill by another, privately-funded,company called CLEAR. Some of the comments I got highlighted some factual errors in my research and accused me of being non-journalistic (which I don't claim to be). One person even asked if I worked for CLEAR (which I don't), but none of them dealt with the real issue I was raising, which was the squandering of rate payers money to do a job that didn't need doing in the first place.

CLEAR at work in February 2010 mining a section of the Sg Kembong landfill.

Screening the garbage to separate and reclaim reusable items and Refuse Derived Fuel.

Anyway insanity prevailed and on August 1st 2010 Worldwide Landfills officially assumed control of the Sg. Kembong landfill and began work to close it off and this is what happened...

Semenyih plant closed due to high levels of ammonia

By DHARMENDER SINGH and CHARLES FERNANDEZ
newsdesk@thestar.com.my

PUTRAJAYA: More than 1.2 million consumers in four districts have been hit by water supply disruptions after the Sungai Semenyih water treatment plant closed due to high levels of ammonia in water drawn from Sungai Kembong.

Read the full story here

I make no bones about being a rabid supporter of Waste to Energy technology, not because of any self- interest but because it makes sense. To begin with, landfills cost a lot: First of all you need to buy a piece of land, then you have to pay someone to operate the landfill, Further costs are incurred for ongoing maintenance and then even more money is required to close the landfill when it reaches capacity. In addition to the millions this all adds up to, there are the hidden costs in terms of the environment and public health.

Waste to Energy technology doesn't cost the taxpayer a single sen. it's a privately-funded initiative where revenue is created by converting garbage to Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) and reusable items like plastics and metals. It eliminates the need for so many landfills as about 80 percent of the rubbish is reclaimed. This in turn reduces the amount of the landfill gas, methane, entering the atmosphere which has a positive impact on global warming.

Last December at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak, pledged a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared to 2005 levels, provided of course, that Malaysia received transfer of technology and financing from the so called developed world.

Well, have I got news for you Mr. Najib! My friends in the garbage business have calculated that up to 13 percent of the overall 40 percent promised reduction could be achieved by adopting Waste to Energy technology nationwide. And, there's no need to import foreign technology or look for overseas investment as the technology we need to convert garbage to energy is already here and it's Malaysian.

WHAT A WASTE

The government could have taken a giant leap forward to improve our environment and general well-being this week when they met to discuss two highly pertinent issues namely: what the new renewable energy tariff will be and secondly, whether to adopt a waste to energy strategy for solid waste management rather than continuing to use landfills.  

I'm sad to report however, that they only decided to take a miniscule step forward instead.

That came in the form of an increase in the renewable energy tariff  from 21 sen to 46 sen for converting waste to energy.  Even though  that sounds like a substantial increase, those who are already working in resource recovery say it's still not high enough to really induce companies into this sector and it's a lot less than the incentives the government have bestowed on the IPPs and those involved in the oil and gas industry over the years.

It's also interesting to note that the new tariff is less than many neighbouring governments have set for renewable energy: Indonesia - 60sen, Thailand - 65sen, Singapore - 70sen Cambodia - 48sen.   When it came to setting the tariff for solar energy however, the government showed, quite clearly, that they are not really that interested in this free and limitless source of energy.  At only 20 sen per KW hour, I can't imagine there will be to many companies falling over each other to compete in this arena because at this price, it will be unsustainable. 

When it came to the decision on whether to adopt the waste to energy concept nationwide they opted to do a study instead. 

Hello!  If you know that it's possible to convert garbage into electricity and you don't leap at that, and if you think that dumping it all on landfills is okay, what is your problem?

Part of the problem is that the government has already committed a lot of public money to landfill management companies and although they are talking about harnessing bio gas from the dumps, only a handfull of landfills have actually been designed and built to do this. Most of our landfills are not even lined properly and are leaking leachate into the water system. 

So why does the government seem so reluctant to change? From what I can see, it's because all the people who benefit from the present system have a lot to loose if the old system is transformed. The municipal solid waste business runs like a cartel and the main players see the introduction of the waste to energy concept as being a threat to the status quo; the end to all the mutual back-scratching and pocket-lining that has been going on undisturbed for years.

Waste to energy is a tried and tested technology that converts a large proportion of household waste into RDF (refuse derived fuel) which is then used as replacement fuel in cement kilns and steam turbines. When this is integrated with mechanical and biological processes, more than 80 percent of raw household waste can be recovered, recycled and reused.  Recycle Energy Sdn Bhd, who daily process 700 tons of Kajang's waste,  are currently supplying a large cement factory with this renewable green fuel and generating 8MW of electricity as well as making compost and recycling plastics and metals.  At a conservative estimate of 18,000 tons of waste per day from the whole country, we could be producing about 206 MWs of electricity. This would have three major benefits:

1. It would reduce dependence on timber and fossil fuel. 

2. It would eliminate landfills and

3. It would reduce our carbon footprint

All very pertinent things to be doing post Copenhagen I should have thought.  Wrong again! there are plans afoot right now to build huge coal power plants in Sabah and Sarawak and the whole issue of nuclear energy is still in contention.

Of course processing garbage isn't going to be able to supply all the power needs for the nation, but it can make a significant contribution.  What's required here is a down-sized holistic approach so that instead of thinking about garbage and power on a national scale, we start to think about it more from a local perspective;  smaller plants serving smaller populations and using a combination of technologies in line with BATNEC (best available technology at no excessive cost)  

The government could have taken a giant leap forward  to improve our environment and general well-being this week - but they didn't!