Managing the solid waste: recycling in Subang Jaya

Recycling is a relatively new exercise in Malaysia. Even though recycling has been introduced years back, lack of public awareness caused a slowdown in the progress of recycling exercise. Lack of sufficient recycling facilities or inappropriateness of the facilities’ location contributed further to the slowdown. Presently, about 19,000 tonnes (approaching 20,000 tonnes) of solid waste are being discarded daily. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government set a recycling goal to be 22% by 2020. In Malaysia, research is being done vastly on recycling but very few related to multicriteria. The objective of the paper is to study the status and the successfulness of recycling exercise in Subang Jaya, Malaysia. With an estimated area 161.8km² and an immense figure of 500,000 of people living in the vicinity of Subang Jaya City Council (SJCC), an estimated count of 350 tons of waste is produced on daily basis with each person contributing around 0.7kg waste per day, in accordance to a current study. Thus it demands a high management cost, with a staggering 50% out of the total tax collected by SJMC had to be allocated for the abovementioned matter. The present recycling rate of Subang Jaya is less than 1%. In this paper, we study ways to achieve the national recycling target by the year 2020. To this end, formulation and analysis of various strategies to raise the recycling rate are done. The evaluation of various strategies involves inherently qualitative criteria and imprecise data. Therefore, the outranking analysis which has been frequently used in such situations is employed. For ranking strategies, a new exploitation procedure based on eigenvector in a PROMETHEE context is proposed to evaluate the overall performance of recycling facilities in Subang Jaya. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to determine the weights based on the local officer and then various stakeholders in the decision process. Then, a generalized procedure in PROMETHEE analysis, a modified approach, is used to rank the alternatives to get an insight on recycling strategies. We proposed a new preference ranking procedure based on eigenvector using the “weighted” in- and out-preference flows of each alternative in the outranking analysis. The basic idea of the procedure proposed here is that it should be better to outrank a “strong” alternative than a “weak” one and, conversely, it is less serious to be outranked by a “strong” alternative than by “weak” one in a PROMETHEE context. It has a completely different interpretation with the AHP since the components of the valued outranking relation matrix are neither ratios nor reciprocal as in the AHP. A total of ten (10) strategies were formulated focusing on two main streams, namely, awareness creation and increasing recycling facilities. Results of our study show that both awareness creation and sufficient recycling facilities are necessary to increase the recycling rate in Subang Jaya. In order to achieve the national recycling target of 22% by the year 2020, intensive awareness creation programs are needed to create awareness among the residents of Subang Jaya. This has to be complemented with sufficient recycling facilities

Landfills in Malaysia: Past, present and future

In Malaysia, the absence of an integrated waste management system resulted with more than 10.40 million tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW) being disposed off into landfills annually. This highlights the importance of landfills in MSW management in Malaysia. However, sustainable landfilling technology is yet to be achieved. This paper deliberates the scenarios of landfilling in Malaysia. Past and present status is thoroughly discussed while future prospects will be scrutinized. During the 1970s, the disposal sites were small and mere open-dumping grounds to cater small communities. With the population expansion in the 80s a national program was developed to manage municipal and industrial wastes more systematically. Early 1990s saw the privatization of waste management in Malaysia, and the establishment of the first sanitary and secure landfills. A more systematic waste management was gradually in place by end of 1990s. However, the absence of an integrated waste management resulted with landfills being pre-maturely closed. The flow of events had eventually led to the passing of the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007. Even though the bill is yet to be implemented, the government has taken big steps to improve waste management system further. Future waste management in Malaysia seems somewhat brighter with a clear waste management policy in place. Therefore it is hoped that waste management and landfilling can be more sustainable in the near future

Status of Microplastic Pollution in Aquatic Ecosystem with a Case Study on Cherating River, Malaysia

Microplastics are emerging contaminants owing to their potential to adsorb and release pollutants from the environment, transferring these pollutants to the food web. Most marine microplastics come from the terrestrial environment, mainly from inland freshwaters that are direct receivers of runoff from urban, industrial, and agricultural areas. The present study investigated the occurrence of microplastics in surface water samples taken from the Cherating river and the Cherating mangrove, Pahang along with a review of recent studies on microplastics abundance in aquatic ecosystems. Three sampling sites were established (two sites along the river and one site in a mangrove in the downstream of the river). In the up- and midstream regions, the river passes by residential, fishery and tourism areas, while the mangrove is located close to Cherating Beach. The highest microplastics abundance was discovered in the midstream region, with an average abundance 0.0070 ± 0.0033 particles/m3, followed by the mangrove (0.0051 ± 0.0053 particles/m3). Fragments with a size of 0.5 to 1.0 mm and white-colored microplastics were prevalent. The findings are similar to those from other microplastic studies (e.g. in Aveiro and Lisbon, Portugal; New England, USA; Kingston Harbour, Jamaica), but lower than microplastics studies in Asia (e.g. Yangtze river estuary and Hangjiang river, China). Overall, the findings provide background information on microplastics pollution in aquatic ecosystems

Public perception on Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Bill 2007 towards sustainable waste management in Malaysia

Lack of appropriate policy is the main constraint to sustainable waste management in Malaysia. As a result, the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Bill (SWPCM) was approved in 2007. Its aims are to provide an act and regulate the manag ement of solid waste and public cleansing in order to maintain proper sanitation in the country. The Bill provides for the administrative bodies authorized in MSW management and the tribunal for solid waste management services. The objective of this paper is to investigate the perception of the public in regards to the current waste management system in the country and future waste management, particularly in relation to SWPCM Bill 2007. To accomplish this, questionnaires consisting of 45 questions were randomly distributed to 694 respondents to obtain 96% confidence level. Data collected were analyzed using SPSS. Results indicated that 86% of the public is satisfied with the current waste management system. The high satisfactory level probably is related to the fact that only reliable waste management contractors are appointed and renewed after an interim period. Contracts of waste managers with high number of complaints will not be renewed and they are directed to stop their collection services. Since the passing of the Bill, government had declared that unsatisfactory contractors will be terminated from their contract once the SWPCM Bill 2007 is enforced. However, 13% is dissatisfied with the collection frequency. The public (67-78%) has relatively high knowledge on the waste management issues such as final disposal option of the municipal solid waste and others. However, the majority of the public (69%) are not aware of the existence of SWPCM Bill 2007 and its passing by the parliament in August 2007. This is mainly due to the absence of notification to the general public from the ministry level. Responses from public regarding the deposit refund system was mainly negative where majority (87%) disagreed to pay deposit for returnable packaging materials as allocated in Part X of the Bill. This is due to the fact that the system is currently absent in the country and its introduction will affect the consumers’ economy as they will lose the deposits if they did not return the materials to the manufacturer. The majority (64%) of the respondents agreed with the regulation of segregation at source. This probably is due to the high awareness on waste disposal issues. Various campaigns were aired in mass-media indicating the deteriorating quality of the environment due to the indiscriminate disposal of MSW into landfill. Nevertheless, 97% are confident that the Bill will improve the current waste management system and able to promote a more sustainable solid waste management system for the country

Interactions between marine megafauna and plastic pollution in Southeast Asia

Southeast (SE) Asia is a highly biodiverse region, yet it is also estimated to cumulatively contribute a third of the total global marine plastic pollution. This threat is known to have adverse impacts on marine megafauna, however, understanding of its impacts has recently been highlighted as a priority for research in the region. To address this knowledge gap, a structured literature review was conducted for species of cartilaginous fishes, marine mammals, marine reptiles, and seabirds present in SE Asia, collating cases on a global scale to allow for comparison, coupled with a regional expert elicitation to gather additional published and grey literature cases which would have been omitted during the structured literature review. Of the 380 marine megafauna species present in SE Asia, but also studied elsewhere, we found that 9.1 % and 4.5 % of all publications documenting plastic entanglement (n = 55) and ingestion (n = 291) were conducted in SE Asian countries. At the species level, published cases of entanglement from SE Asian countries were available for 10 % or less of species within each taxonomic group. Additionally, published ingestion cases were available primarily for marine mammals and were lacking entirely for seabirds in the region. The regional expert elicitation led to entanglement and ingestion cases from SE Asian countries being documented in 10 and 15 additional species respectively, highlighting the utility of a broader approach to data synthesis. While the scale of the plastic pollution in SE Asia is of particular concern for marine ecosystems, knowledge of its interactions and impacts on marine megafauna lags behind other areas of the world, even after the inclusion of a regional expert elicitation. Additional funding to help collate baseline data are critically needed to inform policy and solutions towards limiting the interactions of marine megafauna and plastic pollution in SE Asia