Environment | July 09, 2008 |
Pulau Semakau: The Landfill of the Future?
The Republic of Singapore is renowned for, among other things, its fastidious cleanliness. Bubble gum is highly restricted because of its potential to be discarded in an unsanitary and unsightly manner. Strict, often corporal punishments are handed out for vandalism, despite it being considered a minor offense in much of the rest of the developed world. Even small satellite dishes are banned from private residences, to prevent a cluttered urban aesthetic. Yet for all its cleanliness, Singapore remains a tiny island; a city-state surrounded by sensitive and critically-important waterways. With no extra land for waste disposal, large garbage dumps are simply not an option. No wonder then, that the Philippine government is looking to Singapore for help and inspiration with its garbage management issues.
Singapore’s elegant solution to waste disposal is a unique, and thus far very effective combination of controlled offshore dumping, and land reclamation. While both practices have historically been tremendously harmful to local ecosystems, the transformation of Pulau Semakau from a small island to a massive landfill was carried out with meticulous care; nearby corals were protected by silt screens as the seabed was raised, and a combination of waterproof membrane and clay linings have prevented any seepage from escaping the landfill thus far.
Conditions on the island landfill itself are far from what you’d expect to find at your local city dump. By breaking the whole project down into smaller cells, landfill officials have been able to cap and cover much of the island with lush vegetation and scenic views. Those cells that are still open receive a consistent flow of seawater, which keeps toxins from building up. Mangrove plots, both natural and relocated, thrive on the island, and tremendous biodiversity exists at the site; some of Singapore’s most endangered plant species are found at only Pulau Semakau.
While the project is impressive, especially given the ecological time bombs created by most large-scale landfill projects, a tremendous amount of Pulau Semaku’s success is derived from Singapore’s practice of incinerating most of its waste before burial. While the ash is treated carefully, shipped to the landfill on barges under tarps, the particulate and heat-trapping emissions released by the incineration process may heavily negate the environmental damage mitigation of Pulau Semaku.
Those concerns aside, though, the project continues to be received as a massive success, as sport fishing, bird watching, nature walks, and other recreational activities have been opened and encouraged on Semakau. The landfill provides much-needed green space for the densely populated city, and is now the Singapore’s only garbage dump. It is expected to remain open until 2040, and with careful management and technology advances, could serve the city’s waste disposal needs for years after.
Related articles:
More Energy in Scotland's Garbage Than Scotland's Fields
World's Largest Landfill Gas Plant
U.S. Military Tests Trash-to-Fuel Technology
Companies Save by Burning the On-Site Oil
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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Comments By Readers
It is no solution, to make such an island! Is ist save against an increase of sealevel? Is it usefull, to produce so much poison- material with incineration, that must not reach the biosphere? Singapore should increase recycling and decrease combustion! Kryo- recycling for e- waste and plastics is one alternative to incineration:
http://www.buendnis-zukunft.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=174
It is no solution, to make such an island! Is ist save against an increase of sealevel? Is it usefull, to produce so much poison- material with incineration, that must not reach the biosphere? Singapore should increase recycling and decrease combustion! Kryo- recycling for e- waste and plastics is one alternative to incineration:
http://www.buendnis-zukunft.de/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=174
The level of recycling could be further improved by using gasification instead of incineration. Through gasification the garbage could be recycled into clean synthetic fuels, plastics, or other useful materials, greenhouse gasses could be eliminated or captured, ash byproducts couldbe eliminated, and particulates dramatically reduced-to-eliminated.
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So much misinformation about Singapore's incineration plants here!
They are among some of the cleanest and most efficient in the world, being net PRODUCERS of energy. Yep, the incineration plants actually produce more energy than they consume, actually adding electricity to the power grid like mini power plants.
The carbon footprint issue is a trade-off. Burying the rubbish underground only to spend many years collecting the methane gas produced as the rubbish rots is a luxury solution available for countries with the landspace. It is naive to say that greenhouse gases methane doesn't escape.
Many developing countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philipines, Arica have open landfills that are rotting even as you speak. Even developed countries have them.
Recycling is also one of the most trite and misunderstood myths. It requires a lot of energy to recycle (collection, transport, reforming etc.) and obviously not everything can be recycled. Dun quote recycling like some kind of magic silver bullet.
Singapore's solution to recover the energy in the rubbish in the quickest time requiring the least amount of time producing the cleanest form of waste and recycling them for use in an environmentally friendly manner to create useful land is apparently too sophisticated for some of the people here to understand.
Just to further educate the obviously biased reporting by this writer and the ignorant readers who commented - Singapore's first incineration plant at Ulu Pandan ceased operations on 11 Aug 2009 to be replaced by a new state of the art one in Tuas.
That's after 30 years of service generating 5800 MW of energy each month to power 16,000 homes.
Incineration reduces trash volumes by 90 per cent and produces useful, safe ash that can be used for land reclamation and road pavings, amongst other uses.
This is the only environmentally solution for land scarce countries which is the case for much of Asia with high population densities. But it requires competent governments, foresight, planning and money. Not just talk.
What do you think gasification etc. does? Produce methane only after many years to burn in the end too! You'll run out of land sooner or later, as opposed to creating land via land reclamation.
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