YOURSAY | Can we ignore radioactive waste in our backyard?

YOURSAY | ‘Toxic waste is here to stay for billions of years.’

It'll be 86 years before the leasehold on Lynas PDF site expires

Hopeful: I hope Gading Senggara Sdn Bhd knows what they are getting into when they signed the contract to build the proposed permanent disposal facility (PDF) at Gebeng Industrial Area. Obviously, they don’t know how deep a sinkhole they have gotten into.

The PDF contract will see Lynas transfer the ownership and responsibility of over a million tonnes of radioactive waste to Gading Senggara and thereafter to the state government and other relevant authorities to monitor and maintain the PDF, which will contain latent waste that is harmful to mankind for billions of years.

Hello, Gading Senggara, how much are you paid to carry this never-ending responsibility? The figures may be in the millions of ringgit but it is peanuts in comparison to the responsibility and risks you bring to Malaysians.

This article published by Malaysiakini above shows that you know nothing about the business of building a PDF for radioactive waste. What are your plans when the lease expires? Can you renew for a billion years? 

The public has information that the proposed design of the PDF is a variation of a sanitary landfill approved by the Department of Environment (DOE). Have you checked whether it meets International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) guidelines or operators of such PDF in Europe or the US? Or how China now handles all these radioactive wastes from rare earth extractions?

Concerned citizens including myself have researched the sources mentioned above and have serious doubts and concerns about the proposed PDF at Gebeng Industrial Area. It has the potential to cause an environmental disaster in a pattern and manner similar to the unintentional environmental disaster in Japan of mercury poisoning caused by the waste discharge of a pharmaceutical company just after World War II.

Please review the proposed PDF. IAEA and other experts have recommended that the best site for the disposal and storage of such waste is in a remote desert area. So it appears to us concerned citizens that the best solution for the waste is to ship it back to Mount Weld, Australia, where it first came from.

There, in the remote desert area of Western Australia, the latent harmful radioactive waste can be disposed of and stored safely. Please look at this option, it could be a win-win option.

apanama is back: Anyone who has not learnt any lessons from the 1982 Bukit Merah radioactive pollution is a damn fool. It is well documented. 40 years on, Bukit Merah folk still fear radioactive contamination.

No state official has ever declared the site of demolished Asian Rare Earth and “buried” radioactive waste “safe”. Remember, there is still radioactive waste buried in that area.

The story behind the Bukit Merah incident is the same as this Lynas. Asian Rare Earth set up a factory in July 1982 to extract yttrium, a rare earth, and more than a decade later, it was demolished.

The Asian Rare Earth factory was forced to shut down in the 1990s over its radioactive waste but residents in Kg Bukit Merah remain fearful. It was decided that the waste will be owned by the Perak state government. It will be stored as it has potential as a nuclear power source. I do not know what the Perak government is doing about this waste at the moment.  

So, my question to the folks in Gebeng, Kuantan, and the whole of Pahang is “Do you want to live in fear for the rest of your life the same way as the people in Bukit Merah?”

BluePanther4725: All the parties who signed the deal with Lynas are traitors and corrupters who enriched themselves at the expense and suffering of the people.

It’s very easy for developed nations, like Australia in this case, to exploit poorer countries like ours because in these countries there are scores of corrupted politicians and leaders who are willing to sell away the country for profits.

This is similar to British colonisation in the past. Neo-colonisation is still happening all over the world. Our new Pakatan Harapan government must do everything in its power to curb Lynas and the people will support them.

Malaysia Air MadaNi: Those purported locals who are organising protests and demonstrations against the government’s recent decision are either brainwashed or too silly to realise the long-term harmful impact of toxic chemicals in their backyard.

They would rather sacrifice this country than lose their jobs with Lynas. Jobs can be found elsewhere. Toxic waste is here to stay for billions of years.

To those who are pro-Lynas - ask yourself this common-sense question: if the Lynas plant was so commercially viable, why didn’t the Australians approve the plant in their backyard? Why are the Aussies willing to ship their waste hundreds of miles across the ocean to Malaysia?

Ashamed Aussie: It seems that some people do not think that even at very low levels of radiation, the long-lived radioactive thorium and uranium are sources of harmful ionising radiation. This form of radioactivity has enough energy to mutate cells and damage DNA.

Cancer won’t show up immediately. It takes years and decades to show up - delayed effects. So locals who got jobs and contracts from Lynas want to keep their gravy train, preferring to live in denial of the long-term health consequences.

This is a tragedy and a radioactive toxic legacy in the making - Malaysia has no idea what it is getting itself into with Lynas!

GreenCheetah0027: It is enlightening to learn that the company initially intended to convert and commercialise the radioactive waste into fertiliser, meaning discarding the radioactive waste across a much, much wider area across the country or any other places that may purchase the fertiliser.

This is an ingenious way to get rid of radioactive waste and make lots of money from it. It begs the question of whether such practices are already being used by corporations in different parts of the world that produce radioactive waste. Perhaps, the Malaysian authorities may wish to start testing all fertilisers (imported and local) for traces of radioactive waste.

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