KUANTAN: Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh still believes that radioactive waste at Lynas Corporation Ltd’s rare earths processing plant in Gebeng here should be sent home, despite claims that the radiation level is low.
She also questioned the sort of action that would be taken should there be a sharp increase in cancer cases surrounding the Lynas plant in the future since no baseline study on public health has been carried out.
“I wish to remind you that in the case of low radiation level, the effects cannot be seen overnight, but in years,” she told the media after attending a ‘Ziarah Tautan Kasih Santuni Ibu Bapa’ programme at the Asnaf Complex of Pahang Islamic Religious and Malay Customs Council (MUIP) here, today.
She believed that the best thing to do would be to return the waste to Australia to be disposed off at a mine there if Lynas is allowed to continue operations in the country.
“If Lynas were to build a plant in Australia, it would send such waste to mines, why should there be a double standard? Why here they say the waste can be located near the plant, which is close to a river and the sea?” she asked.
Recently, the media reported Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as saying at a dialogue with Japan’s Foreign Correspondents Club (FCCJ) in Tokyo, that Malaysia would allow the Lynas plant here to continue operations.
Fuziah, who is also Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, said sending its radioactive waste back home should be a pre-requisite if Lynas were to renew its operating licence in the country. - Bernama
