ELFM could be the future of recycling and next big thing here in solid waste management

When ordinary folk look at a landfill, chances are they see a piece of wasteland. When the people at Mogh BioEnergy (M) Sdn Bhd eye the same site, they see a host of possibilities and the opportunity to give a new twist to recycling.

Put simply, the company has plans to start mining rubbish dumps around the country.

Termed as enhanced landfill mining (ELFM), this will be the next resource idea to sweep Malaysia and the rest of Southeast Asia, says group adviser Tunku Kamil Ikram Tunku Abdullah.

“Several advanced gasification and pyrolysis technologies which have zero emission of dioxin and furan are at our disposal if the need to produce power from the excavated municipal solid waste (MSW) arises.

“Otherwise, we are able to undertake ELFM with the experience and expertise available within the company and get the land ready for safe development without the need to use any power-producing technologies,” he adds.

As indicated, this is not just about recycling — by the time rubbish thrown out by households reaches a landfill, it has already been partly cleared of recyclables by the collector himself.

ELFM’s main benefit is to unlock the value of land now used as landfills, and it also eliminates the environmental issues associated with these sites. In a way, it solves one pressing issue of the past, namely landfills, while other methods for the safe disposal of MSW are explored.

While ELFM may still be a relatively unknown concept in Malaysia, it has been gaining purchase in Europe and other parts of the world in recent years.

On its website, the European Enhanced Landfill Mining Consortium defines ELFM as “the safe exploration, conditioning, excavation and integrated valorisation of (historic, present and/or future) landfilled waste streams as both materials (waste-to-material) and energy (waste-to-energy), using innovative transformation technologies and respecting the most stringent social and ecological criteria”.

ELFM, it adds, is part of a wider view of a circular economy and perfectly complementary to urban mining and recycling in general.

Unlocking value of land

Mogh BioEnergy chief operating officer (COO) Timothy Gopal highlights the fact that ELFM will unlock the value of a piece of land, especially in areas where land cost is high. The concept also makes it possible to prolong the life of landfills, thus eliminating the need to establish new ones.

Timothy, an industry expert in ELFM who has worked in several landfill mining projects in Europe and Asia including India, says for sites with high land value, the company would mine them, gasify the MSW in its advanced gasification plant to be set up on-site, sell the recyclables, and then develop the land for commercial or residential use.

“For landfills with low land value, we will mine them and sell the recyclables, process the MSW into refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and sell it to industry boilers, and then develop the land for commercial or residential use.

“Another alternative for landfills with low land value would be to prolong their lives by mining them and selling the recyclables and RDF. Thus, the same landfills can be used for new MSW. This way, the same landfills can be used again and again, with no need to establish new ones.”

Reducing the waste at landfills, it should be noted, will help in the war against global warming as landfills are a major source of the greenhouse gas methane.

And the unique technology to be used in the pyrolysis gasification process will also provide for a continual supply of clean, renewable energy — the process allows for waste inputs to be heated in an oxygenless environment, which means no toxic oxidised pollutants are produced.

Mogh BioEnergy has been involved since 2008 in solar photovoltaic, biogas and biomass projects, including ELFM, particularly in Chennai, Gujarat, Pune, and Mumbai in India, in joint ventures with local companies. It then moved into Southeast Asia in 2014 with a focus on biomass waste-to-energy activity, particularly in ELFM.

Working together, finding solutions

Tunku Kamil says it has already signed for a project in Malaysia and another in Indonesia. “We are now negotiating for similar projects in Penang, Perak and Pahang.”

In addition, according to Timothy, the company is working together with the United Nations Environment Programme by using their parameters and standards for landfill mining, and with the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology in the safe rehabilitation of closed landfills in Malaysia.

Timothy says Mogh BioEnergy, together with its strategic partner KNM Renewable Energy Sdn Bhd, gave a presentation on ELFM in mid-May to the National Solid Waste Management Department and the Performance Management and Delivery Unit as a viable solution and business model.

Mogh Bioenergy, Timothy adds, being the first company that possesses significant experience and knowledge in ELFM in Malaysia, will now work with these two agencies to bring ELFM forward as a possible solution in all federal-owned closed landfills in Malaysia at its own cost, taking into consideration the fact that the government, through the department, now spends about RM30 million to safely rehabilitate a landfill.

The COO feels his company’s critical advantage would be that it does not “require any capital expenditure” from a state government nor the federal government.

“As such, we will be able to assist the government in safely rehabilitating closed landfills, including the safe treatment of leachate and eliminating the risk of methane gas emission, which contributes to harmful carbon emission,” he says.

“Through this, we will also indirectly assist the government in achieving the carbon emission reduction target of 40% by the year 2020, as pledged by the prime minister.”

A matter of perspective

Tunku Kamil says Mogh BioEnergy is open to working with any private company or state agency and any state government on ELFM.

According to him, there are more than 200 closed landfills in Malaysia, both legal and illegal ones. Out of these more than 95% are non-sanitary landfills, which means there is no treatment of waste and soil, thus presenting a significant threat to the environment, including the pollution of air and water.

“This is what Mogh BioEnergy can resolve in an efficient and effective manner.”

He adds: “Landfill sites could contain valuable recyclable materials, including metals, currently attracting high market prices, and plastics, which — although possibly contaminated — could still be utilised for energy recovery.”

Critics of ELFM have said it would be better to simply recycle materials instead of throwing them away, and then incurring the expense of digging them up again and cleaning them.

But, as Timothy points out, that can only be done once the legacy of the past, namely the issue of closed landfills, is settled, and this move has come as the nation begins to run out of landfill sites and amid growing concerns globally about the shortage of valuable materials such as rare earths.

Perhaps it is a matter of perspective. Waste often isn’t just waste and wastelands don’t have to be wasted land, and it’s time Malaysians start to look at both as possible resources — potentially useful and invaluable ones at that.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on May 29, 2015.