Lynas, an Australia company is building (target completion end-2011) a rare earth processing plant in Gebeng, Kuantan. The plant is likely to cause severe damages to environment and may leave behind cancer causing waste products.
The raw material will be imported from Australia and output will be exported to oversea. The byproducts, waste left behind is slightly radioactive, and could potentially bring substantial damage to the environment and the health of the local community (which may include Kuantan, Chukai, Kemaman or Pekan).
Kuantan, and people of Pahang receive NO BENEFIT from the project (project has tax holiday for 12 years, require minimal labour), and what we get is a unwanted refinery (no one in the world want this - in fact, no rare earth refinery had been built outside China for the last 30 years, as it is highly damaging to environment and potentially cancer causing).
Malaysia’s last rare earth refinery in Bukit Merah was closed in 1992, after receiving numerous protests, often violent from local community who claim that the plant had resulted to increase in leukemia and birth defects.
info from http://www.facebook.com/save.kuantan?sk=wall
No comments:
Post a Comment