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Challenges and issues in moving towards sustainable landfilling in a
transitory country - Malaysia
Article · September 2010
DOI: 10.1177/0734242X10383080 · Source: PubMed
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Jeffrey Sachs Center on Sustainable Development Sunway University
University of Malaya
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Waste Management & Research
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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
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Original Article
Challenges and issues in moving towards
sustainable landfilling in a transitory
country – Malaysia
Waste Management & Research
29(1) 13–19
! The Author(s) 2011
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sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0734242X10383080
wmr.sagepub.com
P Agamuthu and SH Fauziah
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 Malaysia’s 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 Malaysia’s 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 efficient
waste management systems to deal with the waste generated
by their citizens but similar scenarios are non-existent in
transitory countries such as Malaysia. Although landfills
are contributing economical values in terms of energy and
carbon reduction potentials in developed countries, most of
the landfills in Malaysia contaminate the environment with
the free emission of landfill gas and leachate (Fauziah et al.,
2007; Agamuthu et al., 2009b).
Landfilling is an essential necessity for waste management
from an economic point of view regardless of the pre-treatments prior to waste disposal, particularly in developing
Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
Corresponding author:
P. Agamuthu, Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Malaya,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Email: agamuthu@um.edu.my
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14
Waste Management & Research 29(1)
nations. Malaysia, which has a daily generation of more than
30 000 tonnes of municipal solid waste (MSW), disposes of
approximately 95% of MSW directly into landfills.
Therefore, the need for sustainable landfills is very crucial
to avoid undesirable impacts to human health and the environment. Unfortunately, economic growth, which has been
given higher priority than the concept of sustainable waste
management, has resulted in the environment being sacrificed
for the sake of economic aspirations. Thus, sustainable landfilling is too complex for the country to achieve. Although
various strategies have been implemented over the years to
improve the waste management system in the country, the
pace of progress is too slow to cater for the ever-increasing
threats of improper management of landfills.
Furthermore, the relative humidity of more than 90% and
an annual precipitation of 1800–2600 mm in Malaysia means
that there are additional climatic factors to be considered
during the design and planning of landfills. The coastal
areas in Malaysia have a high water-table meaning that excavation, sometimes, is not possible beyond 1 m depth in order
that landfills sited in these areas do not pose a greater risk of
groundwater contamination by leachate. These factors further compromise the attainment of sustainability in
Malaysian landfills.
An incident in 2007 in which the water catchment area in
Klang Valley was contaminated with leachate from adjacent
landfills, exposed the seriousness of the environmental
impact from unsustainable landfills (The Star, 2007). The
immediate repercussion saw the closure of several landfills
in Malaysia, on a direct order from the Federal
Government (The Star, 2007). This paved the way for more
significant improvement of landfills in Malaysia where opendumps at unsuitable locations such as those adjacent to rivers
and water catchment areas were closed in phases. In addition, currently operating open dumps would undergo
upgrading to improve the facilities to Class IV landfill
(Table 1), a total ban of new open dumps was imposed,
Table 1. Classification of disposal site in Malaysia
Landfill class
Criteria/facilities available
Class I
Minimum facilities – fencing and perimeter
drains
Additional facilities from Class 1– gas
removal system, separate unloading and
working area, daily cover and enclosing
bund, elimination of scavenging activities
and environmental protection facilities
Additional facilities from Class 2 – leachate
recirculation system allowing the collection, recirculation and monitoring of
landfill leachate
Additional facilities from Class 3 – leachate
treatment system
Class II
Class III
Class IV
and the construction of more sanitary landfills were highlighted (Agamuthu et al., 2008). To fulfil Class IV regulations, it is compulsory that a landfill 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 landfilling system,
the target is yet to be achieved. This is due to the fact that
there are numerous obstacles to sustainable landfilling in the
country. The objective of the present study was to elucidate
the challenges and issues faced by waste managers in making
landfills 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 landfilling 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 officers
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 sufficient 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
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Agamuthu and Fauziah
15
disposal. It excluded hazardous waste materials such as
toxic waste generated by industries, which was managed separately by Kualiti Alam Pvt. Ltd. Waste generation has since
increased with population expansion. Table 2 depicts the
generation of waste by individual states in Malaysia from
1996 to 2009.
Current state of MSW management
The traditional waste management system practised by local
government and the municipalities began to be inefficient and
very unsustainable when Malaysian waste generation per
capita increased from 0.5 kg day1 in late 1980s to more
than 1.3 kg day1 of waste in 2009 (Agamuthu et al.,
2009b). In certain cities, such as Kuala Lumpur and
Petaling Jaya, the generation increased to 1.5–2.5 kg capita1
day1 (EPU, 2006; Agamuthu et al., 2009b). To date, annual
waste generation in Malaysia has reached 11 millon tonnes
with more complex compositions mainly with putrescible
waste (55%), paper (13%) and plastic (19%) (Fauziah
et al., 2009). The remaining portion of the waste contains
rubber and textile, wood, metal, glass, and miscellaneous
items with the contributions of 4, 1, 3, 2 and 3%, respectively
(The Star, 2002; Fauziah et al., 2004). To date, approximately 95% of the waste collected (which is 75% of waste
generated) is landfilled (Agamuthu et al., 2009b). Figure 1
illustrates the typical composition of MSW in Malaysia.
The World Bank (1999) reported that waste management
is one of the three major environmental problems faced by
most municipalities, including those in Malaysia, which is
closely related to unsustainable landfilling practices.
In 1998 alone, 228 licensed dumping sites were reported to
the Ministry of Science Technology and Environment of
Malaysia, and these caused contamination to the surrounding areas (Haznews, 1998). This is due to the fact that project
developers and local authorities failed to adhere to the guidelines stipulated for the development of a disposal site.
Various factors influence the management of a landfill.
Among these is the human factor which includes attitude
and public participation.
Human factor
The human factor plays an important role in establishing an
appropriate management of a landfill. 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 efficiently and landfills
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,
Table 2. Generation of MSW in Malaysia according to states (1996–2009)
States
Johor
Kedah
Kelantan
Melaka
Negeri Sembilan
Pahang
Perak
Perlis
Pulau Pinang
Selangor
Terengganu
Kuala Lumpur
WP Labuan
Sabah
Sarawak
Total
Solid waste generated (tonnes day1)
1996
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
NA, not available.
*Extrapolated figures. (MHLG, 2003; Agamuthu et al., 2009).
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Waste Management & Research 29(1)
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).
there has been a failure to motivate the community to
respond positively. Concern and awareness among the
public in Malaysia have not evolved in parallel with the
living standards and therefore participation towards sustainable waste management through the ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’
approach (3Rs) is severely lacking. Currently, recycling is
only at 5%. Although studies indicated that more than
70% of Malaysians are aware of the recycling concept, less
than 25% are actually participating (Irra, 1999; Fauziah
et al., 2009). More than 70% of Malaysians stated that
they refuse to recycle because the recycling facilities provided
are insufficient and 65% indicated that recycling is an inconvenient practice for them (Fauziah et al., 2009). As a result,
more than 80% of the recyclables in the waste stream are
disposed of into landfills. This causes the volume of MSW to
increase at 3% per year rather than decrease with efficient
recycling practices.
In addition, illegal dumping has become a serious matter
to be tackled by waste managers (Suite101.com, 2003).
In 2003, 500 drums of paint sludge and glue were dumped
illegally at a ravine in an isolated disused area and more than
RM12 million (US$3.4 million) were spent for the clean-up
(The Star, 2002). In the Klang Valley alone, more than 52
illegal dump sites or ‘hotspots’ were reported to accumulate
more than 933 tonnes of waste (Bernama, 2010). The waste
materials cleared from these illegal dumping sites are sent
into landfills resulting in the landfill space being exhausted
earlier than anticipated. As a result, it hinders the practice of
sustainable landfilling as the waste materials collected did not
undergo any pre-treatment prior to disposal. This unplanned
activity will increase the management cost of the landfills,
making the existing practice no-longer sustainable. The
occurrence of illegal dumping is generally due to the ‘not
bothered’ attitude among the waste collectors whose main
concern is to profit from their illegal action.
Also, the NIMBY (not in my backyard), LULU (locally
unacceptable land use) and NOTE (not over there either)
syndromes are very prevalent among Malaysians and so
the establishment of landfills on appropriate sites becomes
extremely difficult. Similarly with the construction of pretreatment facilities such as compactor and transfer stations,
the siting is always sturdily opposed by the public and nongovernmental agencies (NGOs) (Agamuthu et al., 2009a).
The strong resistance from the public towards new waste
management or disposal facilities has caused the location
of a new landfill to be moved further away from the city
centre, that developing the area incurred higher costs for
the construction of the new infrastructure.
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 landfilling 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 financial assistance from the government for
waste management in Malaysia, means that only well established and multinational companies can afford to tender to
provide waste treatment and disposal facilities. As a result,
sanitary landfills 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 financial 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 landfills. As a
result, most waste managers normally aim for ‘just enough’
to comply with the regulations instead of ‘self-sustained landfills’. In addition, the increase in the price of land has resulted
in new landfills being located in areas with very minimal
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Agamuthu and Fauziah
17
Table 3. Number of operating disposal facilities in Malaysia
throughout 1990s and up to 2009
Year
1990
1998
2003
2009
Total
230
177
144
190
infrastructure, or none at all, in order to minimize the capital
cost of the landfill. Table 3 shows the fluctuation of the
number of operating disposal facilities in Malaysia within
the last 20 years.
The fact that landfills are seen as a mere burden and not
as a commodity in Malaysia is another aspect that impedes
the establishment of sustainable landfills. This is because
landfills are mere disposal sites for waste and once a landfill
is closed, it retains no further economical value. Typically
this results from the fact that the revenue from tipping fees
is no longer available for the landfill owners and landfill
operators once the landfill ceased its operation. The absence
of a gas-harvesting system resulted in landfills not being able
to generate revenues from methane conversion. Collection of
landfill gas to be converted into electricity is not feasible and
uneconomical as most landfills in Malaysia are only a few
hectares in size and the capacity of waste received is insufficient to generate an adequate volume of gas which is viable
for extraction. In addition, most of the landfills in Malaysia
are non-sanitary ones that rely mainly on natural clay lining
as the landfill liners and have no infrastructure for the collection of landfill gas and leachate. The establishment of
these disposal sites were mainly based on the traditional concern of getting rid of waste. These landfills are not designed
with the intention of generating resources such as methane to
profit the landfill owners and landfill operators. Therefore,
existing non-sanitary landfills in Malaysia only practice passive release of landfill gas where the installation of gas pipes
are done as the waste cells are receiving waste.
Only the newly established landfills are designed with
appropriate landfill liners to prevent leachate migration to
the groundwater system and a suitable gas collection system
to harvest the gas. Air Hitam Sanitary Landfill, the first sanitary landfill in Malaysia, produces 2 MW of electricity from
the conversion of methane. Similarly, newer sanitary landfills
are capturing landfill gas for the purpose of energy conversion. However, the national policy on energy that is practised
by the country fails to enhance this green approach. This is
due to the low price of electricity in the country – the electricity
tariff for Malaysia ranges from RM0.22 (US$0.06) to RM0.45
(US$0.13) per kWh (Ministry of Energy, Green Technology
and Water, 2009). It is at this low level due to government
subsidies. As a result, the electricity tariff reduces the market
potential of electricity produced via the conversion of landfill
gas. In addition, with the high annual precipitation (1800–
2600 mm), the capping of landfills is necessary to minimize
the leachate volume. As a consequence, capping means additional costs for landfill management.
Disposal fees or the tipping fees in a landfill are highly
regulated by local government due to the fact that the government are paying concessionaires for their waste management services. Hence, landfill owners and landfill operators
are not able to charge a rate that is sufficient to generate
additional income for future improvement of their landfills.
As a result of the economic factors, investment in landfills is
generally at the minimum as it is considered uneconomic
once the landfill has been closed. This hinders improvement
towards sustainable landfilling practices in the country.
Institutional factor
Aside from the economy, the existing policies in the country
also make sustainable landfilling difficult to achieve. This
institutional factor also becomes a major issue of concern.
The institutional factor hampers the practice of sustainable landfilling 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 significant amounts of recoverable materials,
the non-existence of source segregation makes resource
recovery very costly. In addition, the waste disposed into
landfills 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; landfill gas generation begins early
in tropical conditions and becomes an important factor to be
considered in landfill management. This indiscriminate practice of non-separated MSW disposal into landfill 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 landfill gas. Aside from that,
this unsustainable practice also results in the shortening of
the landfill life-span where waste cells which can be optimized
with only garbage also cater for the recyclable items. As a
result, a sustainable landfilling 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 indifferent 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
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Waste Management & Research 29(1)
to avoid loss of votes in the coming election in 2012. This is
seen as a lack of political will in the ruling government with
regard to improving the current waste management system.
Thus, no voluntary effort has been taken by most waste managers to improve the current state of their landfills. As a
result, 90% of disposal sites in Malaysia remain as non-sanitary landfills, which lack pollution prevention features such
as bottom lining, leachate treatment and gas collection systems. As in most developing countries, more than 15% of 187
million tonnes of Malaysian carbon emissions were contributed to by landfill gas emissions.
The lack of institutional factors is very much due to the
absence of an appropriate policy to roll out regulation as to
the proper approaches that should be taken by waste managers in ensuring a sustainable waste management system and
sustainable landfill practice in the country. The Solid Waste
and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007 were passed in
July 2007, by the parliament in the hope to improve the current waste management practice in Malaysia. The implementation of the Act will pave the way for federalization of waste
management in the country by shifting the responsibility from
the State Governments to the Federal Government. However,
the Act is yet to be implemented (although it is 3 years since it
was gazetted) and the potential benefits from the implementation of the Act are still uncertain.
The Solid Waste and Public Cleansing
Management Act 2007
The main objective of the Act is to improve and ensure high
quality services in solid waste management. The Act was
adapted from best management practices in solid waste management from Japan, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany and
the United States of America, and focused mainly on the
management of public cleanliness. The main strategies are
to implement efficient solid waste treatment, interim treatment and final disposal of solid waste particularly landfills.
The Act also introduced strategies such as 3Rs, a mandatory
commitment on waste segregation and severe penalties for
non-compliance with the regulations stipulated within the
Act. With the implementation of the Act, it is hoped that
attaining sustainable landfills is achievable although no
clear directive has been issued with regards to the benchmark
dates of the implementation. To date, the federal government
is still in the preparatory phase in formulating and gazetting
subsidiary regulations. However, several challenges need to
be tackled to ensure the sustainable waste management and
landfilling practices are ‘sustainable’ in the long run.
Overcoming challenges to sustainable
landfilling in Malaysia
The most critical challenge is the change of attitude among
the public. Although Malaysians are aware of issues relating
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 effective campaign and workshops to the general public and relevant
stakeholders. Waste management campaigns must begin
with the dissemination of information to secure the public’s
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 magnified with more
intense campaigns and more organized workshops. The
increase in the recycling rate can be translated to a more
sustainable landfilling practice since the life-span of the landfill 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 effective
response normally can be obtained when it involves monetary benefit. A rewarding system and/or a fine 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 significantly. 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 landfills. 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 effect would be fewer objections among the public on
issues related to the locations of new landfills in the country.
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Agamuthu and Fauziah
19
The expected high positive attitude among the general
public can also assist in tackling the illegal dumping issue
in the country. The problem arises from the lack of capacity
for enforcement. Aside from the involvement of the public in
general, the perception of landfills owners and landfill operators also needs to be changed. The concept of landfilling as
a profitable and sustainable business should be embedded
into the landfills owner. This can be achieved through appropriate, enforceable policy whereby landfills are seen as continuous profit-making facilities through the revenue from
3Rs activities, and power-generating opportunities. Among
the policies which need to be reviewed are the source separation practice, energy potential from the waste management
sector and the appropriate financial assistance.
In addition to the above-mentioned factors, climatic conditions in Malaysia also complicate the challenge towards
sustainable landfilling. This is due to the high rainfall (at
3000 mm per year), which increases the moisture content of
exposed MSW prior to waste collection. The high rainfall
and the high groundwater level make the management of
sustainable landfilling more difficult, with the generation of
a high volume of leachate. Anaerobic degradation (at least
40%) of organic and putrescible waste prior to waste collection is also possible due to the high moisture content
(approximately 60%) and the conducive temperature (30–
32 C) in the tropical climate. Therefore, very delicate planning and landfill designing is required in order to remove
these problems.
Conclusions
Even though there are huge obstacles to be overcome in
moving towards sustainable landfilling 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 offers a new way towards
improved
waste
management
systems
in
the
country. Hopefully, with the issues solved and challenges
tackled or at least minimized, landfills in Malaysia can be
managed effectively in a more sustainable way in the near
future.
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