Lynas Corporation Ltd’s rare earth plant in Gebeng, Pahang, will be safe and harmless if the company follows the recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), according to two Malaysian professional bodies.
The Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) and the National Professors’ Council (NPC), in a joint report on the project, said the plant must adhere to stringent procedures for waste management to ensure worker safety, public safety and environmental well-being.
The 63-page report, issued Tuesday, said the processing of rare earth produces some by-products which carry some low-level radioactive risks, but such risks are manageable and there are technologies available to effectively render the wastes harmless and safe.
ASM, an independent science and technology ‘think-tank”, and NPC, a body of more than 1,500 professors from the public and private universities, initiated a comprehensive study on rare earth and its potential contribution to the Malaysian economy.
In the report, titled “Rare Earth Industries: Moving Malaysia’s Green Economy Forward”, they also said that Lynas Corporation would have to ensure that there is a health scanning of plant employees as well as people working within the immediate vicinity of the plant.
The report said the health scanning is to establish a baseline data on the health of the community living and working around the plant premise.
It also suggested that the “discharge limits for toxic chemicals and heavy metals must meet standards stipulated in the Environmental Quality Act 1974 (and) properly designed permanent storage for low-level radioactive waste must be built to isolate gypsum residues if its beneficiation is not viable”.
The plant also needs to construct an interim low-level radioactive waste storage within the premise to accommodate waste produced in the first three years of operation, it added.
The two professional bodies said the rare earth industry is expanding, especially with the growing demand for green products and the global push to embrace the green economy.
“As a result, investments in rare earth mining and processing have also grown. Apart from China, many countries have started to seriously allocate new investments in rare earth refining. “Some have begun reviving their old rare earth mines which were abandoned during times of low pricing,” it said.
The report said the Lynas plant in Gebeng will be generating three types of residues, namely Water Leach Purification (WLP) residue, Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) residue and Neutralisation Underflow (NUF) residue.
It said the WLP and NUF residues can be considered as raw materials for other industry, for example WLP can be used as raw material in making gypsum plaster and NUF as fertiliser.
Storage and handling of the residues can be overcome because WLP residue contains mainly calcium sulphate, which is also known as synthetic gypsum, while NUF residue is rich in magnesium, the report said.
Meanwhile, ASM chief executive officer Dr Ahmad Ibrahim told reporters after issuing the report that claims that the Lynas plant would emit radiation detrimental to public health were not true.
He said the risks of the Lynas operation were manageable.
However, the company had failed to engage actively with the community in giving a detailed explanation of the project, he said.
“The Lynas management should enhance the understanding, transparency and visibility of its regulatory actions in the eyes of the public, particularly those actions related to inspection and enforcement of the proposed rare earth processing facility,” he said.
Dr Ahmad said the actual rare earth business was good for the future as it led to the making of materials for the use of science and technology, including green technology, and was a good industry for Malaysia towards achieving its Vision 2020 of becoming a developed country.
