BEDB and its initiatives

Congratulations to the BEDB on the launch of their new website. Very nicely done. I hope all our other government sites can follow their example soon. Lots of very useful and very nice presented information. One piece of information that caught my attention was the request for tender for the Transformation of the Sg Akar dump site.

Although it would be nice if a local company could do fulfill the task, I think this is something that we require external help with. I did some research into possible solutions for this problem we have and singled out a possible solution. 

Waste-to-Energy Recycling

In particular, Mechanical Biological Treatment Plants, caught my attention. Read the link for more information.

All the other methods were less efficient and had issues with environmental safety and conservation. W2E solution seems to provide the optimum balance between waste management, environmental protection and alternative energy. I hope the BEDB and/or some local entrepreneur would be able to take this further and seriously look into importing this technology and building several of these plants here to remedy our waste management gap and simultaneously create employment opportunities as well as technology transfer for our nation.

These are the advantages (wikipedia):

Usable wastes for this system:

- Municipal solid waste

- Sewage sludge

Products of this system:

- Recycable materials such as metals, paper, plastics, glass etc.

- Organic fertilizer (separate collection of organic waste)

- Unusable materials prepared for their unharmful final deposit (compaction > 1.3 t/m³)

- Carbon credits – additional revenues

- High calorific fraction (refuse derived fuel – RDF) – additional revenues

Further advantages:

- The finally deposited waste is inert

- Reduction of the waste volume to be deposited to at least a half (density > 1.3 t/m³), thus the lifetime of the landfill is at least twice as long as usually

- Utilization of the leachate in the process

- No unbidden guests such as birds, dogs, vermin, rats on site

- No additional facilities for the collection and combustion of biogas as there is no biogas

- Daily covering not necessary

- Aftercare 3 to 5 years

Changing the landfill to a park does not solve our problem. We will still need to put the rubbish somewhere. Why not use that money to pay for a system to change our waste into alternative energy, provide employment, reduce pollution and save the residents' of that or any other area from further suffering?