Sabah engineers support waste-toenergy incinerator
KOTA KINABALU: Acem Sabah and IEM Sabah are supportive of the proposal by the Federal Minister of Local Government and Housing, Zuraida Kamaruddin for each state to have at least one incinerator of waste-to-energy (WTE) within the next two years to do away with the traditional landfill method, which is unsustainable.
ACEM Sabah chairman Tan Kok Jyh said engineers from ACEM and IEM Sabah are ready to be part of the team to see the successful planning, design, construction, commissioning, operation, maintenance and monitoring of WTE incinerators in Sabah.
As IEM and ACEM have just returned from their business cum study trip to Eastern Europe, from the exchange of information and ideas with the government of Czech Republic, the visits to tunnels, traffic management centre, the energy producing plant and the mitigation of pollution via the use of incinerator, the engineers are ever ready to share what they have learnt, with the state government.
Sabah Branch chairmen of IEM and ACEM, together with their respective office bearers paid a courtesy call on Assistant Finance Minister Kenny Chua recently with the aim to offer advice and assistance to the ministry in making the state of Sabah an attractive place for engineering excellence and environmental sustainability.
Kenny said his ministry would like to bring progress to the state as the growth of the state is dependent on its economic health and he was receptive to proposals for productivity improvements.
Tan informed that using incinerator alone does not work well without separation of the waste and that the first approach for Sabah is to implement and enforce the practice of 3Rs on reduce, reuse and recycle so that the volume of waste that eventually end up in the incinerator can be drastically reduced and allow the WTE incinerator to work optimally.
According to the organizing chairman Lo Chong Chiun of the mission, Austria has stopped landfill since 10 years ago.
It was reported that the European Commission is banning all landfills by the year 2024, which means the only way forward for municipal waste management in the EU countries is to use incinerators.
This can be attributed to their hierarchy of waste management by prioritizing waste prevention, followed by prepare for re-use, recycling, heat recovery and finally to disposal. It was quite amazing that certain European countries can recycle up to 60% of their waste.
A case in point is the Spittelau incinerator in the city of Vienna, Austria where a delegation of 15 engineers from Sabah visited during the technical and business study tour to Eastern Europe plus Slovenia and Croatia from 3rd to 18th September organized by ACEM, IEM, SEA and supported by JKR, JPS and SBA.
The thermal waste treatment plant can handle up to 250,000 tons of waste per year and has a district heating network with a rated capacity of 460MW supplying 60MW of heat to a general hospital just two kilometre away and a further 400MW to five other gas or gas/ oil fired hot water boilers located elsewhere.
The incinerator within the city has no issues as the plant was equipped with a flue gas scrubbing system as well as an ultra-modern SCR-DeNOx and dioxin destruction facility.
Furthermore, the facade of the entire district heating works was re-designed by the famous painter and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, transforming it into a unique work of art which is not only a successful example of harmonious marriage of technology, ecology and art, but also a contribution to the reduction of ‘visual pollution’ of the urban environment.