GEORGE TOWN: An MP and a residents’ group have called on Penang chief minister Chow Kon Yeow to honour the assurance he gave last year that the proposed project to rehabilitate the closed Jelutong landfill and reclaim land beside it would be shelved if it did not obtain the required environmental approval.
Jelutong MP RSN Rayer and Persatuan Penduduk Bandar Sri Pinang cited a dialogue Chow had with residents on June 25 last year, during which he said developer PLB Engineering Sdn Bhd would not receive any extension to start the project if the environmental impact assessment (EIA) was not approved by Feb 26, 2026.
“The deadline has passed, and the EIA remains unapproved. The state government must honour its own words. The ball is now in its court,” said the group’s chairman, Dr K Ganesh, at a press conference today.
Rayer said the fact that the EIA had been rejected four times was cause for concern and showed that the project should not be revived.
“Priority should be given to the health and welfare of residents of Karpal Singh Drive,” he said.
He also expressed hope that Chow would permanently shelve the plan to reclaim land along Karpal Singh Drive, located next to the closed landfill, as the 800m-long promenade is both a tourist attraction and a recreational spot for residents.
It was reported yesterday that the environment department’s EIA portal, which states whether an EIA report has been approved, rejected or is still being processed, classified the project as “not approved”.
The RM1 billion reclamation plan involves digging up the landfill and reclaiming adjacent coastal land north of the Penang Bridge to temporarily dump the unearthed waste, after which a mixed development will be carried out on the reclaimed land.
The 65ha project site comprises 36ha of landfill and 29ha of new land next to the Karpal Singh Drive waterfront.
The Penang Development Corporation signed a deal with PLB Engineering in 2020 to carry out the project, which was expected to take four to five years, but no work has visibly begun.
Residents and environmental groups have said that reclaiming land next to the landfill could affect public health because of the construction of facilities to process waste, as well as harm the nearby Middle Bank marine ecosystem.
‘Cancel the contract’
Ganesh called on the Penang government to terminate the contract with PLB Engineering, saying four rejections by the environment department and the lapsed government deadline provided sufficient grounds to do so.
He also called on the state government to pursue a safe, science-based closure and rehabilitation process for the landfill, including landfill gas capture and treatment, leachate containment and waste stabilisation.
He rejected arguments that the landfill could not be rehabilitated without land reclamation, noting that similarly situated landfills in Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea were successfully rehabilitated without reclamation.
“They can apply the same model here,” he said.
