Singapore Develops New Waste Disposal Method

CHAN:
A new technique for disposing waste in Singapore is being questioned by some. The concern... contaminating sea water around the growing city-state. Let's take a look.

STORY:
Singapore produced 7,000 tons of waste daily in 2007, including domestic and industrial waste. Disposing this huge amount of waste is a difficult task, especially on an island of less than 272 square miles.

Singapore has adopted the incineration method of disposing waste, but has also developed a new technique to dispose incinerated waste ashes in an enclosed sea space, just off the coast.

The Semakau sea landfill has a 4.3 mile perimeter of rock enclosing the sea water between two small islands. Despite its use as a "waste dump" site, it manages to camouflage its dirty areas to look almost like a potential holiday spot.

Activists are concerned that harmful dioxins in the ash might leak out into the environment. However, officials say they are trying to find other uses for the ash, perhaps in road construction.

[Poh Soon Hong, General Manager, Tuas South Incineration Plant]:
"We do not want to throw ash over the road and eventually pollute our water supplies here, so while we want to use the ash as much as possible, we also need to be cautious about this. But like I say, the pilot project has actually shown that it is feasible, we have done a lot of sink holes to measure water leaches and we are quite confident that what we are doing is correct."

But experts and activists continue to claim that ash is bad for the environment.

[Von Hernandez, Southeast Asian Dir., Greenpeace]:
"Landfills inevitably leak even with so called state-of-the-art liners or lining materials, this will inevitably break down. And so the threat of contamination of ground water resources is always there. And there's leakage from underground, and also there's emissions coming out of the landfill -- methane emissions. You have spontaneous fires, and that also contributing to global warming."

But Singapore's long term goal is to incinerate less waste and recycle more. They use the Landfill for recreational activities such as fishing (catch and release), bird watching, walks and educational visits in which the visitors learn about the landfill and also the process of recycling domestic waste.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• ntd
• ntdtv
• news
• Singapore
• technique
• contaminating
• sea
• water
• waste
• Disposing

[philip371]

your landfill for recreational visits??? why?

[SquishDoll]

GREENPEACE BLOWS!