Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) of Potable Water Treatment Process in Malaysia: Comparison Between Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) and Ultrafiltration (UF) Technology

Abstract: This Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) study compares two types of drinking water technologies; Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) technology and Ultra Filtration technology. The selected plant for this study has both types of technologies in use. Collected data are from the usage of electricity and chemicals used in the water treatment process. The Eco-Indicator 99 was chosen to indicate extent of damage from collected inventories. From the result of impact assessment conducted, it is found that Ultrafiltration technology contributes higher impact to all three categories of damages; damage to environmental quality, damage to human health and damage to source when this technology is compared to DAF technology

Uncovering the Relation Between Environmental Damage and the Rate of Rainfall Received Through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Study on Potable Water Production in Malaysia

The world climate change is a phenomenon that is widely discussed in recent times. It causes a huge impact to the population of the world. Global warming causes the world's rainfall pattern to change including Malaysia. Today wet and dry season is very hard to be accurately predicted. Rainy season is getting more frequent and causing destruction to properties and halting economic growth of a nation. Evidence shows that climate change and global warming is caused by human's own lifestyle and activities. Man's savage way is the main caused for global climate change. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool that could be used to assess a product or service from cradle-to-grave. This tool is capable of proving that every human invention has weaknesses and is threatening human life. In water treatment process, chemicals and electricity is needed. A sudden increase in water level in river caused by heavy rain resulted in higher usage of chemicals to treat water. Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) which uses ecoindicator 99 evaluation method to assess the chemicals and electricity, shows that the production of Polyaluminium chloride (PAC) causes damage to human health (respiratory inorganic) while electricity generation is fast depleting the natural resource of fossil fuel such as natural gas. These situation show that the irregular rate of rainfall resulted from the world's climate change not only affect human (eg. Inorganic respitory) but also indirectly causing destruction to the environment (depletion of natural gas) during the treatment of water. To overcome this problem the use of PAC as coagulant can be substituted with Alum. From the impact analysis, it is found that by replacing PAC with Alum, damage is reduced to more than 90% in damage to human health and ecosystem quality. This the same if electricity generation using natural gas is replaced with the combination of natural gas and renewable energy technologies such as solar panels and hydroelectric. Impact analysis also shows that there is 50% reduction in damage to resources when 50% natural gas and 50% renewable energy (solar panel and hydroelectric) without affecting human health and the environment

Sustainability of chicken meat production in achieving food security in Malaysia

Background:Chicken meat is vital in Malaysia since protein-based food is needed in human’s diet and the meat is socially and religiously acceptable by Malaysian. Hence, in order to ensure sufficient supply of chicken meat at affordable price either for present or future consumption, sustainable chicken meat production is needed. Objectives: The aim of this paper is to discuss the framework of sustainable chicken production in ensuring food security. Results: Chicken production industries in Malaysia had rapidly increase due to the increase in demand for consumption. Demand of halal food and increase in cost of living is a main issue of food security in Malaysia Conclusion: Thus, the sustainable production framework in poultry production had been importance in combating the food security issues in Malaysia

Life cycle assessment at a sawmill manufacturing company in Terengganu, Malaysia

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is known as a tool to evaluate and assessing the impacts of products towards the environment. It will include all the process or activities used and waste released into the environment. In detail, LCA involved the collection and evaluation of quantitative data on the inputs and outputs of material, energy and waste flows associated with a product over its entire life cycle. The objective of this study is to identify potential impact of sawmill manufacturing process. This study followed the four phases as stipulated in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 14040 series of standard) for conducting LCA studies such as goal and scope definition, Life Cycle Inventory analysis (LCI), Life Cycle Impacts Assessment (LCIA), and Interpretation

Water footprint of crop production in Tehran province

Evaluation of supply chain of water consumption contributes toward reducing water scarcity, as it allows for increased water productivity in the agricultural sector. Water Footprint (WF) is a powerful tool for water management; it accounts for the volume of water consumption at high spatial and temporal resolution. The objective of this research is to investigate the water footprint trend of crop production in Tehran from 2008 to 2015 and to assess blue water scarcity in the agricultural sector. Water consumption of crop production was evaluated based on the WF method. Evapotranspiration was evaluated by applying the CROPWAT model. Blue water scarcity was evaluated using the blue water footprint-to-blue water availability formula. The results demonstrate that pistachio, cotton, walnut, almond, and wheat have a large WF, amounting to 11.111 m3/kg, 4,703 m3/kg, 3,932 m3/kg, 3,217 m3/kg, and 1.817 m3/kg, respectively. Agricultural blue water scarcity amounted to 0.6 (severe water stress class) (2015–2016). Agricultural water consumption in Tehran is unsustainable since it contributes to severe blue water scarcity. Tehran should reduce agricultural water scarcity by reducing the water footprint of the agricultural sector

Renewable energy policy status and challenges of POME-biogas industry in Malaysia

Palm oil can be considered as a mainstay in the regional development and economic growth of Malaysia. It is an important raw material for local industries and as an export product. Most recently, palm oil has been referred to as a promising feedstock for the production of biofuel which could lead Malaysia towards a low carbon society. With the growing concern towards the increase of energy demand and global warming, the conversion of palm biomass to biogas for power generation has then been recognized as a feasible option in response to the mentioned problems. Nevertheless, various constraints have come in the way to slow down the biofuel production. Therefore, this paper presents an overview on the existing renewable energy (RE) policy and its current programme status, as well as to identify the challenges facing the Malaysian palm oil mill effluent (POME) and biogas industry in order to propose appropriate measures for further improvement of the programme

Key factors for adoption of ISO 14001 by the manufacturing industry: a review paper

ISO 14001 has been recognised as the world's most popular environmental management system (EMS). Numerous studies have been conducted on EMS adoption factors and benefits. However, the review of coincidences in published findings is conspicuously absent in current research development. The purpose of this study is to examine the degree of coincidence in the adoption factors studied to identify the key elements of ISO 14001 adoption for manufacturing industry. This paper examines the key factors including size of organisation, top management motivation, ISO 9001 experience, perceived benefit, regulatory concern based on the context of resources-based view (RBV), institutional theory, and previous relevant publications. The findings of this research serve as reference for EMS adoption among manufacturing industries. Observation of the relationship between organisation characteristic and EMS implementation could help prepare organisation through its adoption process and enhance the continual improvement of the system

Renewable Energy Policy Status and Challenges of POME-Biogas Industry in Malaysia

Palm oil can be considered as a mainstay in the regional development and economic growth of Malaysia. It is an important raw material for local industries and as an export product. Most recently, palm oil has been referred to as a promising feedstock for the production of biofuel which could lead Malaysia towards a low carbon society. With the growing concern towards the increase of energy demand and global warming, the conversion of palm biomass to biogas for power generation has then been recognized as a feasible option in response to the mentioned problems. Nevertheless, various constraints have come in the way to slow down the biofuel production. Therefore, this paper presents an overview on the existing renewable energy (RE) policy and its current programme status, as well as to identify the challenges facing the Malaysian palm oil mill effluent (POME) and biogas industry in order to propose appropriate measures for further improvement of the programme

Determining the Primary Factor Contributed to Household Carbon Emission by Using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM)

AbstractHousehold carbon emission (HCE) is a growing concern among develop countries such as China, United States, and United Kingdom. Numerous researches have been done in order to identify the factors contributing to increase of HCE. Among the factors are numbers of occupants, household incomes, transportation fuels, electricity and liquefy petroleum gas (LPG) consumption, and waste generated by households. Unfortunately, results from these researches are possibly inapplicable at Malaysia due to difference in type of study area and climate. Thus, the purpose of this research is to identify the primary factor contributed to HCE at a residential area in Penang with the application of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The independent variables involved in the research are the numbers of households, household total incomes, electricity consumptions, LPG consumptions, and transportation fuel. The samples consist of 52 households using simple random sampling. There are significant positive correlations between total household income, electricity consumption, and transportation fuel with the amount of HCE. Transportation fuel was the main contributors for HCE at the residential area (β = 1.003, C.R. = 301.315, p < 0.05)

Social impact evaluation of tea production using social life cycle assessment (s-lca) method in Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia

Commercial convention of tea production and plantation at the largest scale in this country has shown an escalation year by year, together with the high demand for tea products in the Malaysian market. This may have a direct social impact throughout the life cycle of tea production. Thus, this research sought to identify the social impacts from the overall process of tea production. This study used the Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) involving descriptive analysis by assessing the social impacts associated with the stakeholders of tea production using three sets of questionnaires. The studies were conducted at one of the highest tea production companies in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. The findings of the stakeholders showed a good level of satisfaction because there was no significant negative effect. Overall, the social aspects of the tea production met the required criteria in terms of social significance. However, there were some social aspects that can be improved by the factory in the future such as health and safety, discrimination, job opportunity and local community involvement