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abstract

 

The Singapore Government is planning to build a new waste incineration plant to replace an existing one that is slated to be decommissioned in coming years. While details such as its capacity and expected date of completion have been announced, the location to construct the new plant has not been specified. The aim of this project is thus to use GIS tools to conduct a cost analysis of potential sites for the siting of the new plant. This project is made up of two parts: namely, (1) choosing potential sites and (2) cost distance analysis. Firstly, potential sites were identified through sieve mapping by overlaying several polygons that reflected factors that we have considered. Thereafter, cost distance analysis was conducted to find the potential site that would help minimise the costs of transporting waste throughout the island to one of the incineration plants in operation. Our results indicate that a good potential site would be at Senoko, at the north end of Singapore.

introduction

 

 

 

Singapore is a small island city-state in Southeast Asia. Due to the hot and humid weather experienced throughout the year, municipal solid waste (MSW) generated in the country is collected everyday to prevent the waste from putrefying and polluting public spaces. Waste collected is then sent to one of the four currently operational incineration plants. Singapore relies on incineration to reduce the volume of the waste by 90%, as part of its strategy to help extend the lifespan of the country’s one and only operational offshore landfill.

 

In September 2013, the Government of Singapore announced that it would build a new incineration plant of at least 2,400 tonnes/day capacity to replace an existing plant of 1,700 tonnes/day capacity, which is slated to be decommissioned by 2018 [1]. As three out of the four existing plants are now situated in the west of the island, the question of interest in this project is to find out if it would be more cost efficient to site the new plant elsewhere (see below for map of the current refuse disposal facilities [2]; the plant within the blue circle is slated to be decommissioned).

 

This project thus sought to conduct a cost analysis of the possible sites for the construction of this new plant. We proceeded with the project in two phases. Firstly, we chose possible sites by looking at (1) the land use plan, (2) possibility of co-location with desalination plants, (3) height restrictions, and (4) buffer distance from residences. Secondly, we conducted a cost-distance analysis to estimate the total cost of collecting and transporting waste across the whole island to the incineration plants. We had also initially planned to further assess the suitability of the most cost efficient site by considering other factors such as the effects on people and property values due to pollution, elevation of the site and its proximity to existing substations. However, due to time constraints and the severe lack of data, we have left this third part out.

 

While this project is fraught with several uncertainties due to the limited availability of data, we hope that the methodology developed can prove useful to assess the cost effectiveness of the possible sites. When more reliable data arise, the parameters can be altered accordingly to give a more accurate representation of reality.

[1] National Environment Agency, Singapore (NEA). (2013). Factsheet on Waste-to-Energy Plants. Retrieved from http://app2.nea.gov.sg/docs/default-source/corporate/cos-2013/factsheet-on-waste-to-energy-plants.pdf?sfvrsn=2.

[2] National Environment Agency, Singapore (NEA). (2013). Refuse Disposal Facility. Retreived from http://app2.nea.gov.sg/energy-waste/waste-management/refuse-disposal-facility.

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