DBKK News

21-02-2006

Recycling Plant
21 February 2006, KOTA KINABALU: The life span of the existing landfill at Kayu Madang, Telipok, is expected to last for another 10 years or more thanks to a new advanced high-tech Sorting, Recycling and Composting Plant, the first of its kind in Malaysia. Once fully operational, the Egyptian technology plant costing some RM17 million Ringgit, is capable of sorting and composting up to 500 ton domestic waste per day. The pilot project is fully financed by MS Mart Recycling (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, a company based in Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur. Aside from that, the company will also pay rental to Kota Kinabalu City Hall for the use of more than six acres of land at the existing landfill. Mayor Datuk Iliyas Ibrahim revealed this after inspecting the Sorting, Recycling and Composting plant at Kayu Madang on Monday. Also present were his Director-General, Dr. Chua Kim Hing, Engineering Director, Ir. Lee Tet Fon and Health and Services Director, Michael Samuil. On hand to receive Iliyas were the Project Manager for MS Mart Recycling (MSMart), Mr. S. U. Naathan and the General Manager of Engineering Tasks Group (ENTAG), Mr. Eng. Raed Ahmed Nassrat. ENTAG, an Egyptian based company is providing the following services process design, detailed design and engineering for civil, electrical works and mechanical equipment, supply of equipment, construction, erection, commissioning and start up of the plant. According to Naathan, this pilot project is fully financed by MSMart, in collaboration with ENTAG, which provide the technology and the setting up of this plant in Sabah. The overall operation after the commissioning is run by MSMart. Iliyas said City Hall decided to allow the turnkey project and for MSMart to set up the plant here in Sabah, realizing that the life-span of its existing Kayu Madang landfill is shortening and the need to come up with immediate plan to address the increasing amount of domestic waste being disposed daily at the landfill. Explaining the plants mechanism, Naathan said it is capable of recycling 500 tons municipal solid waste, ie. whatever household domestic waste, per day. According to him with proper operations and maintenance schedule, the recycling plant can last for a lifetime with. However, he said an extra line may be needed to the existing plant to cater for the projected three percent increment of domestic wasted due to the population increase. Pointing out the weakness of the existing landfill managed by City Hall, he said decomposting is badly happening at the Kayu Madang landfill because organic wastes are thrown together with the recyclables. With the recycling and composting plant, the company is going to recover all the organics wastes which cause leachete. The leachete is actually the outcome of organic decomposting because it is very harmful and pierce our water system and adulterate our water and its going to be poisonous, he explained. On the difference between a recycling plant MRV plant and incinerators, he said with incinerators whatever recycle items which has value will be burnt into ashes thus polluting the environment. Whereas with this sorting, recycling and composting plant, they do not only recover waste but create some kind of income to the government, protect the environment and create employment to the people. Meanwhile, Raed said the there are currently 54 similar plants in Egypt and they also have successfully implemented similar plants in Libya, Serbia and Yugoslavia. Explaining the success of the whole idea, he said once fully operational, plant, can start recycling the domestic waste collected all around the city and the nearby districts, into reusable material.

All useable material such as plastic steel, cartons, clothes and etc. would be recycled, while organic remains from houses such as food leftovers, would be turned into compost and changed into fertilizer. The remaining of this material, a few percentage of rejected material, will go to the landfill where previously almost all the garbage were 100 percent organic, which are harmful to the ground and environment. With this plant, only a small percentage of rejected material which consist only of dry materials, will go into the landfill which will not be harmful to the ground and environment, said Raed. Assembling work of the plant which were imported from Egypt, began on January 15 this year and is expected to be fully completed once the remaining parts of the machinery arrived in a few days. The gigantic plant sited on a 3.2 acres at the Kayu Madang landfill consist of two separate machineries auxiliary machinery housing the feed loaders, carriage truck, compacting machine, shredder machine, standby generator, continuous railing machine and metal pailers, and the primary machine housing the feeding conveyor, slicer machine, prommel screen, sorting conveyor, magnetic conveyor and post panel screen. Another 3 acres of land are used as composting area. Full operation of the plant is expected to begin sometime in March this year.