Malaysia lacks proper laws to monitor or control incinerator emissions, which will leave residents around Broga exposed to the dangers of prolonged air and water pollution, said a German scientist.

Ingo Godeke, who reviewed the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report released recently, said industrialised countries have enacted laws and directives to monitor and control emissions from incinerators.

Germany, for instance, has put in place federal laws designed to maintain a high standard of environmental protection and control of polluting emissions.

"Several compounds, well-known as pollutants which are great health hazards, are not regulated in Malaysia," he said when commenting on the Broga EIA.

"The government of Malaysia has the duty to protect its citizens from unregulated health- damaging incineration pollutants."

Public comments

Godeke's statements formed part of the public comments submitted to the Department of Environment (DOE) on Oct 11.

Other comments include those prepared by Netherlands-based senior scientist Pat Costner, the DAP and PAS anti-incinerator teams and the Semenyih/Broga No Incinerator pro tem action committee.

Godeke also said that since the Broga proposal is the first large-scale waste incineration proposal in Malaysia, "there is no experience with the consequences of unregulated emissions of large-scale incinerators".

He said Japan has had to pay the price for its folly of building thousands of incinerators over the last few decades without sufficient regulations. It now holds the dubious distinction of recording the world's highest air pollution levels, specifically dioxin levels.

Godeke said the "fatal and disastrous mistakes" made by Japan should never be repeated in Malaysia.

Malaysia's main piece of legislation for environmental protection is the Environmental Quality Act 1974.

'Wrong data'

Echoing Costner, who criticised the detailed EIA as "lacking in-depth evaluation", Godeke said the environment, health impact assessment was "completely irrelevant due to the insufficient data collected during the study period which had resulted in a "completely wrong predicted emission data".

"Emissions from incineration are regulated by Germany's federal law, including a directive for waste incineration emissions to be minimised to the levels stipulated in (the) legislation," he said..

Godeke's comments also listed the various substances - particulate matters, toxic gases and heavy metals - emitted by incinerators, and a comparison of the substances based on the standards in Germany and Malaysia.

The figures, he said, showed that Malaysia had a lower standard or that the substance was not regulated.

He also warned against major breakdowns due to the very high moisture content in household trash, a normal occurrence in modern incinerators that leads to the release of toxic emissions.

Alleging that the consultant, Perunding Utama Sdn Bhd, had not done "proper homework" and that it had used outdated data for the final analysis, he said it was little wonder that the plant design had incorporated a back-up plan for a fifth line to process waste.

Not foolproof

The government's proposal states that four of the five lines will operate round-the-clock daily, leaving one on standby for emergency purposes.

According to Godeke, such a back-up plan would not be necessary if the system was foolproof as claimed by the manufacturer and echoed by the government and EIA consultant.

"No one would spend millions building an extra line if they did not anticipate some kind of breakdown to occur," he noted.

"The quality of incinerators developed in Japan is quite doubtful. Their incinerators have significantly higher emission rates than those developed in Europe....and this does not reflect well on the Ebara proposal," he added.

Earlier this year, the Japanese engineering giant was awarded the contract to design and build the incinerator, touted as the world's largest of its kind. It is scheduled to begin operations in 2007, if implemented.