Residents welcome treatment plant
Residents of Nyborg who once objected to the siting of Denmark’s sole industrial waste treatment plant in the town now consider the facility necessary to treat hazardous waste generated by industries and households. In fact, a job at Kommunekemi is much sought after, reports TAN CHENG LI in the second of her three-part series.
By TAN CHENG LI
KOMMUNEKEMI is very much a part of the daily lives of most Nyborg residents.
It not only supplies 60 per cent of the town’s heat consumption and 15 per cent of its electricity use but is located near food factories, a golf course, summer houses and even a kindergarten.
Its close proximity to Nyborg residents was a contentious point at the height of public pressure against the plant in the 1970s and 1980s.
Kommunekemi technical director J. Toffner Clausen explained that there was no long-term planning in the site selection 20 years ago.
"The land was available so it was just put there.
"Another reason perhaps was because the municipal tar plant was there and had begun a waste oil cleaning business, so it seemed logical to have the treatment plant next to it."
He claimed, however, that being so close to the town of 18,000 people has pressured plant officials not to be lax on safety measures.
"If we’re out in the countryside, it would not be so easy to control what is going on, we can do anything and get away with it."
Nyborg mayor Niels V. Anderson said a survey done several years ago showed wide public acceptance: 80 per cent of the town folks did not mind its presence, five per cent thought it should never have been there, while 10 per cent preferred it to be elsewhere.
The land surrounding Nyborg and Klintholm where the landfill is located is heavily cultivated with barley, wheat, sugar beet, potato, strawberries and cabbage.
"These are good and clean products," assured farmer Jens Groth Christensen, a local council representative who sits in the technical committee which meets Kommunekemi officials twice a year.
He added: "As a farmer, I have never considered Kommunekemi a problem and neither have the other farmers. None have protested about the plant or the landfill. We trust that the authorities are controlling the firm."
The Environmental Protection Agency deputy director-general Hans Henrik Christensen said Kommunekemi could be forced to move if the agency felt that it should as the plant has to renew its license every eight years.
He added however: "We are quiet happy where it is at the moment, but if locals dislike it they can appeal to us."
Christensen said Kommunekemi was not "special" but like any other food factory or mill.
"People should not fear such plants. One of the biggest polluter in Nyborg was a factory producing enzyme which is not closed," he said.
The classic "not in my backyard" syndrome however still exists.
'As a farmer, I have never considered Kommunekemi a problem and neither have the other farmers. None have protested about the plant or the landfill. We trust that the authorities are controlling the firm.'
Farmers Jens Groth Christensen
Shop manager Henrik Petersen believed Kommunekemi posed little risks to the public as the authority was very strict with potential polluters.
He however would rather not live next to Kommunekemi and could not say why when pressed for a reason.
If there is anyone with reason to want Kommunekemi to move, it will be Hemming Van, whose spring roll factory Daloon is 200 metres aways from the plant.
"Ideally it should not be so near food factories but it will be unfair and expensive to ask Kommunekemi to move.
"I just have to trust that everything is being done to make the plant safe and I am satisfied with their safety procedures," said Van, Daloon’s managing director.
Daloon, a slaughterhouse and a bacon slicing plant, was already in the area earmarked for a food industrial estate when Kommunekemi was put up "with little or no consultation with its neighbours."
Van now accepts Daloon’s proximity to Kommunekemi and even shelved plans to move when the business was expanding.
"Since I have not lost any business or ever had to destroy food due to smells or problems posed by Kommunekemi, I decided to stay and bought over an adjacent land for a new factory."
The large deposit of drums containing chemicals found next to a food factory however created a bad impression and Van requested that Kommunekemi built a wall to keep the drums out of view.
In spite of a clean bill of health by the EPA however, old fears die hard sometimes.
When whiff s of an odour are picked up anywhere in Nyborg, the finger is almost always pointed at Kommunekemi.
More often than not however, checks reveal the source to be another factory, in particular the spring roll factory!
Workers happy with safety in plant
FOR every vacancy advertised by Kommunekemi, the management receives about 50 applicants.
The plant employs more than 200 workers, of which a large number are from the island of Fyn, in particular the town of Nyborg.
The 11 per cent unemployment rate here is lower than Denmark’s average.
Kommunekemi employees find working there no different than in any other factory.
In fact, many consider themselves working for the good of the environment.
John Copsen, the only casualty in the plant’s 20-year history, did not consider leaving Kommunekemi inspite of an accident 10 years ago which injured his arms.
Copsen, 46, was unloading drums of waste from rail coaches when one of the containers exploded.
The waste generator had allowed paint in the drum to be contaminated with water, causing a chemical reaction which had produced hydrogen and a pressure build-up in the drum.
Due to nerve damage, Copsen’s left arm has little strength.
Today, he is no longer assigned heavy task and now works in a desk job as assistant to the store manager, keeping records of spare parts.
"It’s a job just like any other. I am not worried, it’s a safe place to work as safety measures have improved much over the years," said Copsen who had been with Kommunekemi for 14 years.
This is the second summer that 20-year-old Mark Oeum is working in the plant, where he will spend about 1½ months.
His job involves transferring liquid waste from drums into tanks by using a pump.
Oeum claims to enjoy the working environment and does not doubt the safety of the plant.
"The materials I work with are oils and paints, not acids or poisons. I wear protective masks and gloves so there is no physical contact with the waste."
He said Kommunekemi was doing society a favour by treating industrial waste.
"It is good that waste products are sent here and not into nature."
Laboratory chemist Anne Soransan agrees: "We have to take care of certain dangerous materials so that they do not pollute. The plant is necessary for the community and the land."
When she joined Kommunekemi 12½ years ago however, friends had warned her about hazards in such a facility.
"But I told them it is not so, they are using paints and other things which are also dangerous."
Soransan believed the public has since accepted the plant and now consider it a "good" place.
"Plant operators work hard to make It safe, and if there are problems, the Environmental Protection Agency keeps an eye on Kommunekemi."
Even the press which never had a "warm" relationship with Kommunekemi officials and had accused them of being eager to hide information, now had some good things to say about the plant.
Fyen Stiftsdende reporter Mogens Rasmussen said there had been so much pressure on Kommenekemi that the firm had made efforts to improve itself.
"Its technology is better now than at beginning and there have not been so many accidents since the late 80s. The public is beginning to accept it more and more."
Rasmussen, who had actively covered issues on Kommunekemi for the past 10 years, pointed out however that Kommunekemi and journalists must I never be close friends.
"We must always be critical of firms handling dangerous substances."
Nyborg mayor Niels V. Andersen echoed that thought: "We’re critical of the plant but also positive. We cannot say that there must never happen anything but instead, try to make the accidents, if any, as small as possible."
He said waste treatment plants were necessary in an industrial society, and small incidents were inevitable sometimes.
Source : The Star, July 26 1993
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