Dear YAB Abdullah Ahmad Badawi,

On June 20, 2003, I wrote an open letter to the former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad on the issue of the Broga incinerator , urging him to put a stop to the RM1.5 billion project.

Mahathir did not respond well to my open letter, and instead lashed out at all who opposed the project vehemently. He has since retired from his office for almost a year now, but the threat of the Broga incinerator is even more pronounced, now that the detailed EIA report for the project has been approved by the Ministry of Science, Environment and Technology.

I would like to bring the matter to your attention and sincerely hope that you can use your good office to put a stop to the project for the sake of the people in Broga in particular and for all Malaysians in general. I am now reproducing the said open letter to explain our case to you.

'DAP Selangor has received numerous complaints from the residents of Broga/Beranang/Semenyih/Kajang and other parts of Malaysia on the proposed mega-incinerator project. The main fears of the residents are that the said incinerator will not be safe and will certainly bring severe damage to their health besides causing a serious depreciation in value to their properties in the affected areas.

More than 10,000 residents from the area have signed a protest signature campaign initiated and organised by the residents soon after the government decided to move the project from Kg Bohol, Puchong to Broga.

We hereby express our strong objection to the proposed Broga incinerator for the following reasons:

1. No incinerators, regardless technology, size and manufacturer can be considered to be absolutely safe in this world. The proposed gasification fluidised-bed, ash-melting incinerator, which is considered to be the latest technology and used in Japan, is of no exception.

There is no document or record to show that this type of incineration is safe and sound. The biggest incinerator of this kind happens to be a pilot project in Japan, with the capacity of burning 300 tonnes a day.

The manufacturer of this pilot incinerator is none other than Ebara Corporation, the same company awarded with the contract to design and build the largest incinerator in the world in Broga, with a record capacity of burning up to 1,500 tonnes of rubbish a day!

Numerous reports have shown that this technology is not stable and is problematic, and it has caused Ebara a lot in funds to fix technical problems.

2. The proposed site for the incinerator project sits right in the precious Semenyih water catchment area. The water supply from the Semenyih River and other tributaries nearby are currently serving more than 333 residential areas, with a population of about two million in the Klang Valley and Putrajaya .

Any contamination occurring in the area will have far-reaching and serious consequences to the residents and other Malaysians in general.

3. The cost of the proposed project is said to be more than RM1.5 billion. It is estimated to require another RM50 million every year for maintenance and repair. But the life span of the incinerator is no more than 21 years.

This exorbitant cost is simply not justifiable compared to other options and alternatives. It works out to about RM240 to burn just one tonne of rubbish, compared to only about RM20 per tonne by the traditional landfill method.

This will definitely push up quit rents and other utility bills and cause a big burden to ordinary taxpayers. This is something we Malaysians can never afford.

4. Ebara Corporation has been in dire straits in the past. The company was found to have contaminated the Hikiji River in Furukawa. The discharge of dioxin (a general name for a cancer-causing toxic agent produced by incineration of materials containing chlorides) into the river was said to be 8,100 times higher than the permitted level set by the Japanese authorities.

Ebara was also found to have evaded paying taxes to the Japanese government and had retrenched or 'de-mobilised' hundreds of staff. It was also booked for causing damage to the environment. How could the Malaysian Ministry of Housing and Local Government award such an important project to a company with such a shoddy record?

5. The entire world is now saying NO to incinerators after realising the disastrous consequences they bring. Japan, US, UK, Belgium, South Africa, Denmark and many other European countries are closing down their incinerators largely because of dioxin and other toxic discharges. The Philippines has even passed a law to ban all construction of incinerators in their country.

6. The Japanese government, through its embassy office in Malaysia, has denied providing a soft loan for the project. It would simply mean that Malaysians would have to pay a very high interest for the funding of the project.

Your government has yet to disclose the source of the funding to date. The citizens of Malaysia have the right to know who is behind the project financially since we are the ones who will foot the bill eventually.

7. The project, in our opinion, has not only breached the natural law of justice and the trust of the people to the government, it has also breached the following laws of the land, namely the Federal Constitution, the Local Government Act, the Banking and Financial Institutions Act, the Companies Act, the Foreign Investment Committee Regulations, the Town Planning Act and the Environment Control Act.

I hereby call on Datuk Seri to instruct the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and other relevant government authorities to terminate the contract given to Ebara Corporation immediately in order to safeguard the interests of residents in Broga/Beranang/Semenyih/Kajang and that of other Malaysians in general.

This is in line with your policy for a caring society and good governance.

It's time for the Malaysian government to adopt the zero-waste management method used by other developed countries to resolve their ever increasing piles of waste. DAP is always ready and willing to work with the government to find a better solution for the country's waste management.

The writer is DAP's international and NGO affairs secretary.