Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
http://wmr.sagepub.com/
Challenges and issues in moving towards sustainable landfilling in a transitory country - Malaysia
P. Agamuthu and SH Fauziah
Waste Manag Res 2011 29: 13 originally published online 29 September 2010
DOI: 10.1177/0734242X10383080
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://wmr.sagepub.com/content/29/1/13
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
Additional services and information for Waste Management & Research can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://wmr.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://wmr.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Citations: http://wmr.sagepub.com/content/29/1/13.refs.html
Original Article
Abstract
Malaysia disposes of 28 500 tonnes of municipal solid waste directly into landfills daily. This fact alone necessitates sustainable landfills to avoid adverse impacts on the population and the environment. The aim of the present study was to elucidate
the issues and challenges faced by waste managers in moving towards sustainable landfilling in Malaysia. Various factors
influence the management of a landfill. Among them is the human factor, which includes attitude and public participation.
Although Malaysias economy is developing rapidly, public concern and awareness are not evolving in parallel and therefore
participation towards sustainable waste management through the reduce, reuse and recycle approach (3Rs) is severely
lacking. Consequently, landfill space is exhausted earlier than scheduled and this is no longer sustainable in terms of security
of disposal. Challenges also arise from the lack of funding and the increase in the price of land. Thus, most waste managers
normally aim for just enough to comply with the regulations. Investment for the establishment of landfills generally is
minimized since landfilling operations are considered uneconomical after closure. Institutional factors also hamper the
practice of sustainable landfilling in the country where 3Rs is not mandatory and waste separation is totally absent.
Although there are huge obstacles to be dealt with in moving towards sustainable landfilling in Malaysia, recent developments
in waste management policy and regulations have indicated that positive changes are possible in the near future.
Consequently, with the issues solved and challenges tackled, landfills in Malaysia can then be managed effectively in a
more sustainable manner.
Keywords
Sustainable landfill, public participation, reduce, reuse and recycle (3Rs), institutional driver, economic driver
Date received: 4 June 2010; accepted: 8 August 2010
Introduction
The increase in population has been one of the factors which
translate to higher generation of waste. In most developing
countries the impact is more profound due to the rapid economic growth. As a result, the higher purchasing power
enables the community to consume various new types of
products leading to the composition of the waste generated
becoming more complex and highly heterogeneous.
In Malaysia, the increase in the complexity of waste generated is evident from the 1980s to the 2000s (Agamuthu et al.,
2009a). Although Malaysias economy makes it among the
most progressive transitory countries in the world, waste
management is in rather a poor state. Developed nations
such as Denmark, Austria, Germany and Japan have ecient
waste management systems to deal with the waste generated
by their citizens but similar scenarios are non-existent in
14
Criteria/facilities available
Class I
Class II
Class III
Class IV
and the construction of more sanitary landlls were highlighted (Agamuthu et al., 2008). To full Class IV regulations, it is compulsory that a landll has a proper leachate
treatment system in addition to a gas removal system, a separate unloading and working area, daily cover and enclosing
bund, elimination of scavenging activities and environmental
protection facilities. Although the urgent need calls for the
immediate action towards a sustainable landlling system,
the target is yet to be achieved. This is due to the fact that
there are numerous obstacles to sustainable landlling in the
country. The objective of the present study was to elucidate
the challenges and issues faced by waste managers in making
landlls in Malaysia sustainable. Various factors that tackle
the challenges will be analysed via waste management issues
that exist in the country, in order to identify possibilities for
improving the landlling system in Malaysia.
Background
In Malaysia, during the early 1970s with low population density the need for a centralized waste management system did
not seem important. Aside from the fact that the waste was
composed of organic materials, the quantity produced was so
low that individual waste generators or municipalities handled the waste themselves. Among the methods utilized then
were burning or burying waste within the compound of the
waste generators or utilizing it as animal feed. As most dwellings were located on large pieces of land, space was available
for burning or burying waste, or rearing domestic animals.
However, the late 1970s saw the initiation of the development
of centralized residential areas where government ocers
were given quarters during the period of their service, and
the private sector purchased private houses in newly constructed housing schemes. The development of housing
schemes throughout the country particularly in urban areas
required the local government and municipal authorities to
ensure that good sanitary and health conditions were provided for the area.
This initiated some rudimentary waste collection systems,
which involved MSW being hauled from residential areas for
disposal at dumping grounds owned by the municipalities.
The disposal sites were mainly located in unwanted areas
and acted as mere open dumps. As the generation per capita
was less than 0.5 kg day1 and consisted of highly putrescible
waste materials, natural degradation minimized the pollution
intensity to the surroundings.
The open dumps were usually small to cater for the need
of a single municipality with population less than 10 000
people. The MSW volume in Kuala Lumpur was only 99
tonnes day1 in the 1970s and so this minimal waste management system was sucient to deal with the disposal
(Agamuthu, 2001). At that time MSW in the country,
which included commercial, residential and non-hazardous
industrial waste, was collected by the municipalities for
15
Human factor
The human factor plays an important role in establishing an
appropriate management of a landll. This is due to the fact
that human activities are the main generators of waste which
requires a proper treatment system. In more environmentally
concerned nations, positive attitude leads to high public participation in matters concerning the environment. Therefore,
implementing strategies that involved the public, such as
source separation, can be achieved in due course. As a
result, waste materials are managed eciently and landlls
are more sustainable, with longer life-span and operating
period.
Although Malaysia is a country with rapid economic
development, public participation in environmental issues is
very low. Despite the running of various campaigns, such as
recycling adverts, to instil awareness among Malaysians,
Johor
Kedah
Kelantan
Melaka
Negeri Sembilan
Pahang
Perak
Perlis
Pulau Pinang
Selangor
Terengganu
Kuala Lumpur
WP Labuan
Sabah
Sarawak
Total
1998
2000
2002
2004*
2006*
2008*
2009*
1613
1114
871
433
637
806
1286
165
916
2380
743
2105
NA
NA
NA
13 070
1786
1215
950
480
695
879
1402
180
999
2595
811
2305
NA
NA
NA
14 589
1915
1324
1034
515
757
957
1527
196
1088
2827
883
2520
46
NA
NA
15 587
2093
1447
1131
563
828
1046
1669
214
1189
3090
965
2755
70
2490
1905
21 452
2255
1559
1213
605
890
1125
1795
230
1278
3322
1038
3025
74.3
2642
2021
23 073
2430
1680
1302
650
957
1210
1930
247
1375
3573
1116
3323
81.2
2887
2208
24 969
2578
1782
1382
690
1015
1284
2048
262
1458
3790
1184
3525
86.1
3062
2343
26 489
2655
1835
1423
711
1046
1322
2109
270
1502
3904
1219
3631
88.7
3154.3
2413
27 284
16
4%
1%
3%
2%
3%
55%
19%
13%
Organic waste
Wood
Paper
Metal
Plastic
Glass
Textile/ rubber
Others
Figure 1. Typical municipal solid waste composition in Malaysia (Fauziah and Agamuthu, 2009).
Economic factor
Even though Malaysia is a developing country with a progressive economy, economic constraints are among the issues
to be tackled in establishing sustainable landlling practices.
From the economic point of view, the challenges arise from a
lack of funding and the increase in the price of land.
The lack of nancial assistance from the government for
waste management in Malaysia, means that only well established and multinational companies can aord to tender to
provide waste treatment and disposal facilities. As a result,
sanitary landlls in Malaysia are only owned by private concessionaires that belong to well-established companies.
To make matters worse, the existing national policy on
waste management in the country discourages nancial institutions such as banks from investing in waste management
projects. Therefore, waste managers with small amounts of
capital are impeded from improving their disposal sites.
Loans from banks are unavailable, resulting in smaller
waste management companies having little or no opportunity
to venture into the establishment of sustainable landlls. As a
result, most waste managers normally aim for just enough
to comply with the regulations instead of self-sustained landlls. In addition, the increase in the price of land has resulted
in new landlls being located in areas with very minimal
17
1990
1998
2003
2009
Total
230
177
144
190
Institutional factor
Aside from the economy, the existing policies in the country
also make sustainable landlling dicult to achieve. This
institutional factor also becomes a major issue of concern.
The institutional factor hampers the practice of sustainable landlling in the country due to the lack of proper waste
management policy. The absence of an appropriate policy
hinders the implementation of an integrated waste management system in Malaysia. As a result, 3Rs is not mandatory
and waste separation is totally absent. Although the MSW
stream contains signicant amounts of recoverable materials,
the non-existence of source segregation makes resource
recovery very costly. In addition, the waste disposed into
landlls in Malaysia is highly commingled with wet and
putrescible components. The moisture content of the waste
can reach 70 to 80%. The warm climate of the country (27
34 C throughout the year) enhances rapid degradation of the
putrescible components; landll gas generation begins early
in tropical conditions and becomes an important factor to be
considered in landll management. This indiscriminate practice of non-separated MSW disposal into landll is highly
unsustainable. It translates into the loss of valuable resources
such as metal components, paper and plastics, and the degradation of the environment with increased environmental
pollution from leachate and landll gas. Aside from that,
this unsustainable practice also results in the shortening of
the landll life-span where waste cells which can be optimized
with only garbage also cater for the recyclable items. As a
result, a sustainable landlling practice is not achievable.
In addition to the lack of appropriate policy, waste management is also highly political and competitions among the
ruling parties in the countries are jeopardizing the waste
management system. As waste management is a very sensitive issue, it is usually used to solicit votes among the people
during an election. Moreover, with the indierent attitude
among the public towards environmental concerns including
issues on appropriate waste management, it is impossible to
achieve improvement. Even the newly passed Solid Waste
and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007 is ridiculed by
opposition parties with the claim that the Act deprives the
public of their rights. This has led to the federal government
playing safe in making statements regarding this issue so as
18
to the environment, their concerns for the actual environmental impacts are generally low. Therefore, it is important
that more campaigns and workshops should be organized by
appropriate parties such as the government agencies including Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Ministry of
Education, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
and the Economic Planning Unit. An integrated approach
from these various agencies may contribute a concensus to
formulate and deliver a more appropriate and eective campaign and workshops to the general public and relevant
stakeholders. Waste management campaigns must begin
with the dissemination of information to secure the publics
agreement or co-operation. The public must be clearly
informed of their direct contribution towards waste generation and the direct consequences resulting from their action.
Earlier campaigns to introduce recycling in the country were
able to improve the recycling rate from 0.5% in 1990 to 3%
in 2000, and to 5% to date (Agamuthu and Fauziah, 2010).
The campaigns involved various media including the mass
media and distribution of posters. The small success in
improving the recycling rate could be magnied with more
intense campaigns and more organized workshops. The
increase in the recycling rate can be translated to a more
sustainable landlling practice since the life-span of the landll can be lengthened and revenue can be earned from the
recyclables collected.
Economic factors play crucial roles in pushing the general
public and the relevant stakeholders towards a positive
response on waste management issues. A more eective
response normally can be obtained when it involves monetary benet. A rewarding system and/or a ne system based
on the carrot and stick concept should be implemented.
This will not only result in a higher positive response, but
in the long run it may instil a positive attitude among
Malaysians once it becomes their natural habit. Source separation for example can promote 3Rs since the waste generators deal with the actual waste separation at their premises.
Involvement in recycling activities can be expected to
increase signicantly. In addition to that, more facilities for
recycling need to be provided by the relevant authorities.
This is because convenience should come in parallel with
awareness to participate in recycling activities. This is to
ensure that recycling practice will be completely participated
by the waste generator. The rewarding system can also
reduce the negative syndrome of NIMBY, LULU and
NOTE. This can be accomplished by introducing appropriate strategies such as the exemption of waste management
fees scheme and provision of free power supply to residential
areas that are near neighbours of the landlls. This approach
has been proven to obtain a positive response from the recipients as reported in Spittelau in Austria and Osaka in Japan
(Best Practice UN-Habitat, 2002). A direct consequence of
this eect would be fewer objections among the public on
issues related to the locations of new landlls in the country.
19
Conclusions
Even though there are huge obstacles to be overcome in
moving towards sustainable landlling in Malaysia, recent
changes in the waste management regulations and policy
has given some hope. The Solid Waste Management and
Public Cleansing Act in 2007 oers a new way towards
improved
waste
management
systems
in
the
country. Hopefully, with the issues solved and challenges
tackled or at least minimized, landlls in Malaysia can be
managed eectively in a more sustainable way in the near
future.
References
Agamuthu P (2001) Solid Waste: Principle and Management. Malaysia:
University of Malaya Press, 1228.
Agamuthu P and Fauziah SH (2010) Best practices and innovative
approaches for sustainable waste management. Paper presented at
the International Consultative Meeting on Expanding Waste
Management Service in Developing Countries. Tokyo, Japan.
Organized by United Nation Commission on Sustainable