WTE Plants the Solution for Waste?

Garbage trucks in Malaysia dump some 38,000 metric tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) at dumpsites around the country. Food waste is the biggest component, followed by plastic, paper, mixed organics, wood and others. There are 165 landfills, eight sanitary landfills and three inert landfills for materials such as sand and concrete – and all are running out of space.

Several agencies and environmental activists, including Alam Flora and Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation, are warning that no space will be available for landfills by 2050 if nothing is done to reduce waste.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org

The answer may be in waste to energy (WTE) plants. Experts see the potential to include WTE as part of the renewable energy (RE) generation.

WTE plants would complement fossil fuel power generation plants. Among the advantages of WTE is that its footprint is small compared to solar energy.

It’s also safe and reliable and can operate in any weather conditions, reduce waste volume by more than 90%, reduce the load on landfill and produce stable and odour-free residue.

According to the Malaysian Investment Development Authority, WTE facilities can substantially contribute toward Malaysia becoming a zero-waste nation. The Local Government Development Ministry plans to build six WTE plants across the nation by 2025. At present, a plant in Port Dickson, Negri Sembilan, started operations in June 2019.

Others in the pipeline are in Sungai Udang, Melaka; Bukit Payung, Terengganu; Seelong, Johor; Samling, Selangor; and Jabor, Pahang. These are part of the country’s commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Malaysia’s current RE capacity level is at 25% and it targets to hit 40% by 2035. 

Although WTE plants are a great idea, it needs improvement on the front-end to final processing. There are also issues on collection and tariffs; water separation; separation of plastics, iron and others; drying process and final pellets for driving a small power plant. Stability of the “raw” materials, machinery and process flow are all areas for practitioners and universities to assist the industry. If we have a “workable” plant for our climate then we don’t need landfills or incinerators.

Singapore has been through this and focuses on incinerators with balance in waste “dumped” as compacted particles into the sea for their new land “acquisitions”. We need to work with those who have journeyed before us including the Scandinavian countries. When we do that, we may have a better solution for our waste. Further, we need to learn from Japan how they teach the young to handle waste.

Reference:

Reducing the landfills with WTE plants, The Star, 21 June 2023