Metro

Saturday November 7, 2009

From rubbish dump to dream park

By CHOONG KWEE KIM


GO within sniffing distance of the Pulau Burung landfill or garbage transfer site in Batu Maung, Penang, and don’t be surprised to come out feeling nauseous with a whiff of the stench clinging to the clothes and hair.

Dumpsites here are open bowels of collective waste reeking methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and leachate that foul up the air and seep into the ground to contaminate waterways.

In September, matters came to a head when four lorries that carried garbage from the barge jetty to the Pulau Burung landfill on the mainland broke down, causing a pileup of waste at the transfer site in Batu Maung on the island.

With the echo of complaints still ringing in their ears, a small delegation of Pakatan Rakyat state officials recently left for Seoul to attend the Global Green Business 2009 Conference and also to visit its landfills to learn from the Korean expertise in green technology and solid waste management.

Two journalists, one each from The Star and Guang Ming Daily, tagged along with the group of five comprising state Local Government Committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow, state Environment Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh, Jelutong MP Jeff Ooi, his political secretary Fong Kam Cheong, and Eden Inc Bhd energy sector director Nik Mohd Fuad Wan Abdullah.

Romance in the air: (From left) Ooi, Chow and Phee standing beneath an arch on the hilltop of Haneul Park in Seoul.

The conference, attended by participants from 26 countries, was co-organised by the Korea Environmental Industry Association and Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) under the auspices of the Korean Ministry of Environment.

The trip for the two state exco members were sponsored by KEITI while the journalists were sponsored by Ooi’s office.

Our first stop, the World Cup Park in Seoul, is a sanctuary of rest and leisure. In it are four smaller theme parks lushly covered in greenery that has begun to burst into autumnal hues of brilliant orange, red and brown.

Unlike the nauseating experience back home, visiting this rehabilitated landfill in the land of the famous Korean TV series, Winter Sonata, is literally a walk in the park.

Windy day: Visitors walking in a maze of tall grasses called Eulalia in Haneul Park.

The air is refreshing, the wind chilly, and the sight of nature in abundance, simply breathtaking. Some 300 steps later up the hill on Haneul Park, climbers come upon a floral arch at the entrance to a maze of pathways carved out of tall grasses called Eulalia, their wispy stalks with blooming heads nodding in the wind that also powers wind generators harnessing renewable energy.

The landscaped hilltop affords a breathtaking vista of the World Cup Stadium on the left and the Nanji Han River with a fountain feature on the right. It seems almost impossible to believe that from 1978 to 1991, this expanse of land had been the Nanjido landfill, dubbed the ‘land of death’ where municipal, construction and industrial waste created two hills over 90m high which polluted the environment with leachate and hazardous gases.

Amazing transformation: Formerly part of the Nanjido landfill, Haneul Park is now lushly covered with trees and has become a popular site for rest and recreation.

The Landfill Recovery Project kicked off in 1996 with the implementation of four processes — leachate treatment, top soil leveling and soil recovery, extraction and recycling of landfill gas, and slope stabilisation.

Within six years, the landfill was successfully rehabilitated into an eco-friendly park in time for the World Cup Korea-Japan 2002.

Today, it is a green city where environmental awareness programmes are conducted, festivals and concerts held, and visitors come for family theatres, skating and sledding.

The Penang delegation came away impressed and inspired to seek a similar remedy for the rehabilitation of the old Jelutong landfill on Penang island which has been reassigned to receive only construction and demolition waste.

The Sudokwon landfill in Incheon, one of the world’s largest landfills covering 19,896,100 sqm, is undergoing a rebirth as an environmental theme park under a ‘Dream Park’ project that will also work to retain its functions as an active landfill.

The first of its four phases, closed since 2000 after taking in 64 million tonnes of rubbish, is being transformed into a respectable venue for the 2014 Asean Games. There will be a 36-hole golf course, facilities for watersports, equestrian sports, public park, social amenities and skating rink, among others.

Presently, a power generation plant here burns landfill gas to generate 50MW of electricity to the national grid for distribution, making up less than 10% of the national power generation.

Eco Energy Co Ltd director Song Kyung-Yong said the power plant supplied electricity to 180,000 households each year, which translated to approximately 500,000 barrels of crude oil or USD20mil, in monetary terms, saved each year.

“Moreover, we contribute to reducing Green House Gases by burning methane which is the primary content in landfill gases,” said Song.

Eco Energy is the concessionaire which constructed and managed the power plant in a joint-venture with an American company.

Another company, Re-Tech Solution Co Ltd, (RTS) is managing a pilot project to turn landfill gas into liquid fuel.

Sharing knowledge: Lee (left) explaining to Ooi the technology behind the landfill gas extraction at Phase II of the Sudokwon landfill in Incheon. Seen here is a gas collection cap channelling landfill gas to the surface through a perforated pipe inside the cap.

RTS president Lee Young-Min explained that landfill gases comprised 55% methane, 45% carbon dioxide and less than 1% trace elements such as sulphur hydroxide.

At the plant, landfill gases go through a process where contaminants are extracted through chemical reaction, moisture removed with a gas dryer, and carbon dioxide separated from methane through deep chilling until methane liquifies at –164 degree Celsius.

The end result is liquefied natural gas at 98% purity for use as vehicular fuel.

At Phase II of the landfill currently in use, waste dumping is carried out zone by zone in a controlled manner.

Each mound of waste is built up layer by layer alternating with soil until the mound reaches a maximum of eight layers.

Here, top soil covering the most part of the landfill here has significantly reduced the stench of rotting waste beneath.

Landfill gas extraction is done concurrently with vertical perforated pipes driven underground leaving their gas collection caps sticking out all over the place like chimneys.

This scene might be replicated at the Pulau Burung landfill, if the Penang Government were to opt for Korean technology in a current tender award inviting companies with the necessary expertise to generate bio-energy at our very own landfill.

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