Anaerobic digestor plant site to be finalised

PUTRAJAYA: The Department of National Solid Waste Management is in the midst of identifying a suitable site in Kuala Lumpur to
construct an anaerobic digestor plant to treat food waste from hotels and restaurants, said Director General Datuk Dr. Nadzri Yahaya.

Nadzri said the site for the plant would be finalised by the end of the year.

"We are in the midst of looking at strategic locations in Kuala Lumpur. We have difficulties in identifying suitable sites because we have to take into consideration the distance, routing and the impact to the surrounding environment beside the availability of land.

"We also hope to have the design for the plant ready by end of the year. We will then appoint a contractor for the construction of the plant," he told Bernama.

Nadzri said the anaerobic digestor plant, to be constructed under the private financing initiative would have a minimum capacity of 50 tonnes of food waste.

The plant cost would depend on the proposal which was yet to be determined, he said.

The plan is one of the initiatives under Entry Point Project Nine of the National Key Economic Area Greater KL/ Klang Valley.

A food waste study, conducted by the department and concluded in
November last year, recommended the appropriate approach for food waste treatment such as a biogas facility.

The objective of the study is to map the commercial sources of food waste from eateries, factories and restaurants; identify the amount of waste generated and the system for waste disposal.

There are four major initiatives under the revitalised solid waste management which focused on developing an efficient solid waste management ecosystem.

The first initiative calls for an improvement in the reduce, reuse and recycle implementation by creating a recycling rate of 40 per cent by 2020 from the current five per cent.

These can be achieved, among others, by introducing a composting and anaerobic digestion to tackle a high-level of organic waste and stimulating construction and demolition waste recycling with a proper system and a recycling facility.

The second and third initiatives seek for an increase in waste treatment capacity to reduce the amount of solid waste disposed in the landfills and an improvement in governance of solid waste management and public cleansing services.

The final initiative calls for an assessment of the future potential for leveraging new developments in technology like automatic waste collection systems and deep bins to improve waste collection standards.

Nadzri said to date, 54 per cent of the households in Kuala Lumpur have been provided with a bin each for residual rubbish which would be collected twice a week.

He said, as at April 30, Alam Flora had distributed 153,000 units of 120 litre bins to households.

"The distribution of the bins and separation at sources are targeted for completion by September 1, this year," he said.

Nadzri said with the enforcement of the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007 on Sept 1 last year, solid waste management would be addressed in a comprehensive manner, from waste generation to collection, treatment and disposal, with emphasis on the three Rs - reduce, reuse and recycle.

The privatisation exercise in Kuala Lumpur would go into full swing by Sept 1, he added. - Bernama