KUALA LUMPUR: THE Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry is encouraging construction companies here to dispose of construction waste at a processing plant in Sungai Kertas, Gombak to prevent illegal dumping in landfills, which could be dengue-breeding grounds.
“Our efforts to combat the dengue threat have been focused on managing domestic waste. But now, as the construction industry is getting bigger with development, it is timely to focus on illegally- dumped construction waste, which also creates breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” its minister, Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan, told the New Sunday Times.
He said addressing the problem was important as more construction waste would be generated by mega projects in the Klang Valley, such as the construction of the Mass Rapid Transit, Menara Warisan, PR1MA Sungai Besi and Tun Razak Exchange projects, as well as the demolition of the Pekeliling flats.
Studies conducted by the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Corporation showed that construction waste was expected to increase to 1.34 million metric tonnes annually by 2020.
The first of its kind in the country, the Sungai Kertas facility can process 300 to 500 tonnes of construction waste.
Operated by Worldwide Landfill Sdn Bhd, the facility is expected to receive 10,800 tonnes of construction discards this year.
“The plant was built two years ago but started operations earnestly late last year to address the issue of illegal dumping,” Rahman
said.
He said legislation to control the disposal of construction waste
was being formulated. Once finalised and enforced, it would regulate the activities of all stakeholders involved and ensure better management of construction waste.
“But before we enforce laws to regulate the industry and make the disposal of construction waste at processing plants compulsory, we need to increase the capacity to process construction waste in the Klang Valley by building four to five more such plants in other locations here.”
Rahman said the National Solid Waste Management Department under the ministry regarded this matter seriously not only from a dengue eradication perspective, but also to avoid wastefulness as construction waste could be reused as basic materials for roads and buildings.
“In 300 hot spots where construction waste has been illegally discarded, we discovered that 80 per cent of them consisted of concrete, rock, wood, steel and other construction materials.”
According to 2005 figures from the Construction Industry Development Board, an estimated 627kg per capita of construction waste is generated annually.
-NST
