Review of Municipal Solid Waste

Source Reduction Practice

Chia Lin Lin
School of Architecture, Management and Surveying
University College Sedaya International
(
llchia@ucsi.edu.my)

Abstract
The main objective of this paper is the investigation of current municipal management practice in Kota
Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. The Sustainable Urban Development Project (SUDP) under Kota Kinabalu City
Hall, co-sponsored by Danish Co-operation for Environment and Development (DANCED), has reviewed
recent literature on solid waste management in Kota Kinabalu. The results show a rapid increase in the total
amount of municipal solid waste and significant changes in their composition. These are related to the
increased population of Kota Kinabalu and their lavished spending. The total solid waste generation has
reached 164 tons per day (Town and Regional Planning Department, Sabah, 1998). The SUDP thus put the
minimization at source to the top of the hierarchy of preferable options and Government seeks to encourage its
uptake. The main focus would be the 3R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle). Policies and factors affecting the
municipal solid waste reduction plan will be discussed. Key design data and other useful information selected
from a variety of reliable sources are presented. The adoption of integrated waste management practices
should be emphasized in order to achieve greater efficiency

.Keywords: Municipal Solid Waste, Source Reduction, Policy

1. INTRODUCTION collected is brought to the sanitary landfill in Kayu

Municipal Solid Waste, more commonly known as
trash or garbage, consists of everyday items such as
product packaging, grass clippings, furniture,
clothing, bottles, food scraps, newspapers,
appliances, and household hazardous waste such as
paint, cleaners, oils, batteries, and pesticides.
Though most of the trash could be rather harmless,
the household hazardous waste, which contains
hazardous components such as leftover portions of
chemical, can be dangerous to health and the
environment.
Currently, at Kota Kinabalu, the municipal waste
management is undergoing a transition period, where
the previous service provider – Pacific Garbage
Management Services Sdn. Bhd. has been terminated
following complaints from residents. Started from
18 November 2003, Municipal Council of Kota
Kinabalu will take over the collection and vow to
improve the living quality of Kota Kinabalu’s
residents. (Khabar DBKK, 19 November 2003)
Kota Kinabalu has been practicing sanitary landfill
depositing since the operation of the first and only
sanitary landfill site in September 1997. The rubbish
Madang, Telipok, approximately 27 km from Kota
Kinabalu. The total area of the sanitary landfill site is
115 acres, of which the landfill basins cover 14 acres,
catering for wastes from the municipality and also
Penampang and Tuaran districts. KKMC trucks
currently transport an average of 164 tons of wastes
to the dumpsite everyday. Kayu Madang landfill site
is designed to have a lifespan of 15 years, and shall
come to its closure by 2012. (Town and Regional
Planning Department, Sabah, 1998)
Without proper planning and corporation between
the local community and the waste handling industry,
a new landfill of 100 acres needs to be located and
opened every 10-15 years. However, as urban and
suburban land become very scarce and the population
grows, it is almost unavoidable to have a new landfill
next to human habitation. The emotional and
physical impacts would be significant. Thus, it is
essential to rethink about the ways to minimize waste
and to reduce the amount of waste going into the
present – landfill.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
According to United Nation Solid Waste
Management Sourcebook: -
 MSW generation in the region has been
increasing at a rate of 3 to 7% per year as a result of
population growth, changing consumption patterns,
and the expansion of trade and industry in urban
centers. MSWM operations absorb large portions of
municipal operating budgets, of which as much as
60% are for collection and transfer of the wastes for
disposal. There is much discussion now of
sustainable development through an integrated
approach to waste management, including
minimization of the production of wastes and
maximizing waste recycling and reuse. Throughout
the region, cities have been practicing source
separation and recycling formally and informally.
Sustainable development through an integrated
approach to waste management, including
maximizing waste recycling and reuse and
minimization of the production of wastes are much
discussed by all nations. Throughout the region,
cities have been practicing source separation and
recycling formally and informally.
In developed countries such as Japan and United
States, specific law has been enacted to enforce the
recycling practice across the industry. The basic law
for reduction at source is established as the backbone
of the judicial.
Whereas developing countries mainly rely on
informal source separation and recycling of materials
with least governmental interference. Market value
becoming the drive force.
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
As a first step in the investigation, a search of the
technical literature was performed to identify
pertinent reports, papers, and studies. Concurrently,
the project paper of Sunita binti Jobli has been
studied to determine the nature of waste composition
studies conducted in Kota Kinabalu. A total of 3
reports were made available. These reports were
analyzed and provide the basis, in many instances,
for the recommended policy.
In addition to that, information was retrieved from
Town and Regional Planning of Sabah, to have a
better insight of the government concern and priority.
Review has also been conducted to various national
organizations including the United States
Environmental Protection Agency and other
developing countries to compare the source reduction
policy and their effectiveness. As a result of this
search, it was discovered that similar efforts to
develop waste source reduction have been made in
Thailand and Singapore. It has also shown the
determining factors for the policy varies with the
waste compositions, available technology and the
public awareness and conscious.
A key objective in conducting this research was to
examine the current policy and to identify area of
possible improvement with which the private and
public community is comfortable.
4. PROBLEM STATEMENT
Acceleration in urbanization in Kota Kinabalu has
resulted concentration of people and pollution.
Municipal solid waste management system is
insufficient at both ends – the source and the
treatment facilities. When Industry and government
have typically addressed these concerns with the
construction of waste treatment facilities, it is
nevertheless an expensive operation that does not
completely eliminate the waste. Furthermore, the
generation of waste implies a loss of resources, thus
a loss of production opportunity and profitability.
The pollution prevention or waste minimization at
the source would mean a business of recycling which
could range from collection, sorting to regenerating,
creating jobs for thousand with increased
productivity and profitability along with
environmental benefits. But not all waste can be
prevented and recycled and waste that is generated
must be adequately treated to minimize its impact on
the environment. Accordingly, the “optimal
approach” to industrial waste management is a
combination of both pollution prevention
(minimization at source) and treatment facilities.
What are available options to Kota Kinabalu City
Hall? As the literature review illustrate, research has
been conducted on pollution prevention in the
developed world and to a lesser extent in the
developing world, however, they shows a different
approach in different countries factoring in the
government involvement, waste content and
education level. This paper will try to provide an
assessment of waste minimization practices around
the world, in addition to outlining the options of
waste management system in operation.
5. BARRIERS
The literature review shows the barriers for the
success of waste minimization could be categorized
into six groups: -
1. Economic Barrier
2. Informational Barrier
3. Technological Barrier
4. Regulatory Barrier
5. Attitudinal Barrier
6. Physical Barrier
Page 2
However, these barriers are no isolated incidents as
they normally forming intertwining relation and
found their existence in the form of issues.
Unhealthy Competition with Private Sector
The source separation might not be suitable for Kota
Kinabalu, where most valuable recyclables are
already diverted from the municipal waste stream by
waste generators, through private and/or informal
systems of waste trading and recycling. As such
collection and marketing demands a high cost of
resources, financial and managerial. Thus
departments which are already overburdened with
the duties of public cleansing and waste disposal are
not advised to add the responsibility of collecting and
selling source-separated recyclables.
An additional obstruction to municipally sponsored
materials recovery arises from the fact that there are
so many individuals and small enterprises, which
make a living by recovering and trading recyclables.
If source-separated items were set out for collection,
it is highly likely that these would be stolen before
the municipality could claim them. This represents
the physical barrier where the municipal effort does
not get enough returns to be self-generating.
A significant economic barrier is the capital required
for the initiation and full establishment of a waste
minimization program (Camm and Nuttel 1995).
The cost for initial set up is especially high in Kota
Kinabalu given the factors of technological barrier.
Thus, without proper economic incentives given to
the trades and industry in waste minimization field, it
is impossible to materialize the industry in full scope,
especially when the disposal cost is still relatively
low in Kota Kinabalu.
Finally, it is often problematic to reduce the jobs
provided by private waste recovery and waste trading
by transferring these to the public sector. This is
especially important where the public sector of waste
management is inefficient or overburdened.
Lose of Focus
The lack of Internal and external information of
waste minimization has caused the lose of focus. As
the Kota Kinabalu has initiated the Internally-derived
information with the joint-effort of DANCED,
producing a waste audit outlining the details
concerning volumes and characteristics of waste
generated, the points in production where waste is
generated, the means of waste disposal currently
employed, however did not address the cost of waste
generation in terms of treatment, disposal and value
of feedstock wasted.
We are still very much lacking in the area of external
information which should refers to information about
waste reduction, reuse and recycling options,
technological options, disposal options, funding
options and incentive programs, potential markets for
waste, and the economic and environmental benefits
of waste minimization (Resource Integration Systems
et al 1984)
With the new understanding of the municipal solid
waste content obtained from the waste audit, we
should realize that it would be wiser if the municipal
focus on the organic content, and the management
and disposal of non-recyclable and plastic. While at
the same time, allowing and promoting the growth of
recycling trades for those recycling trades that are
already established.
Public Awareness
The economical issues in the long run and the total
saving has not been felt by the public, as they get no
return from their effort of recycling to the recycling
bin in the public, and they are discouraged by the
inconveniences caused by the placement of bin from
their everyday curbside collection as in single family
dwelling and centralized collection in multiple
family dwelling.
Furthermore, an attitudinal barrier exists when a firm
is apprehensive about taking risks or is unwilling to
make changes. This reluctance often originates from
the attitude “that if it ain’t broke, why fix it”
(Batstone et al 1989).
Lack of Legislation
Regulatory barriers result from a lack of pollution
control regulations, weak enforcement, or weak and
insignificant penalties for non-compliance. This
barrier is pervasive in developing countries where
there are few environmental laws and poor
enforcement (Yap and Heathcote 1995).
In Malaysia, for example, the benefits of source
reduction are recognized, however, there are not
enough provision in the Environmental Quality Act
1974, nor is it in the municipal by-law, that it
provides the necessary legislative control over the
matter. In general, our focus of regulations still
remains on a ‘react and cure’ approach.
Page 3
6. PRIMARY TOOLS FOR GOVERNMENT
TO USE IN PROMOTING WASTE
REDUCTION AND MATERIALS
RECOVERY
Promoting Existing Trades
Recycling has made a vital contribution to job
creation and economic development. Recycles
creates or expands businesses that collect, process
and broker recovered materials as well as companies
that manufacture and distribute products made with
recovered materials. Municipalities could support
the source reduction by: -
1. Support source separation, recovery, and
trading networks with information sharing
(especially of market information) and
forums of stakeholders.
2. Facilitate small enterprises and public-
private partnerships by new or amended
regulations for cooperatives, loans to small-
scale businesses, amendment of inhibiting
zoning and control regulations, low-rent
space for stockpiling depots, etc.
3. Assist waste pickers to move out of manual
picking by instituting retraining programs or
subsidization of sorting/redemption centers;
control harassment of itinerant buyers and
waste dealers by police.
4. Export recyclables if there is high demand
in neighboring countries and non-toxicity is
assured.
Targeting Organic Content, Plastic and Non-
Recyclable
1. Promoting Composting
Organic materials such as kitchen waste,
yard waste, and wet or soiled paper that
cannot be recycled should be composted to
produce a useful product. Compost - A
sweet-smelling, dark brown humus material
that is rich in organic matter and soil
nutrients.
Mandatory composting programs and use of
economic incentives can be used to
encourage composting.
Compost can be produced from
biodegradable solid waste in large plants,
bagged and sold. This approach is used in
many European countries, including the
Netherlands, the former West Germany,
France, Sweden, Italy and in a large plant
near Miami, Florida. Enclosing the facilities
and using filters to deodorize the air inside
can reduce odor problems.
Curbside pickup integrated the allocation of
separated compostable materials should be
encouraged as part of the waste
management program. Community drop-off
centers should be provided if curbside
pickup is unavailable.
2. Promote innovation to create new uses for
goods and materials that would otherwise be
discarded after initial use.
Promoting Public Participation
The experience of Madison, Winconsin (population
of 201,000) illustrated that the curbside recycling has
helped to reduce the annual cost of solid waste
services by reducing the pick-up frequency, routing,
and save money on land reclamation, as the life span
of landfill being extended. All these cannot be
achieved without a proper propaganda and education
effort such as: -
1. Efficient and economical collection of
recyclable materials should be promoted by
the design of collection routes, schedules,
and fees.
2. Controlling collection costs could be
achieved by efficiently integrating
collection of recyclables with refuse
collection. To minimize collection costs,
some communities are collecting
recyclables in the regular refuse vehicle by
using bags of different colors to differentiate
recyclables from garbage
3. To maximize participation in a drop-off
program, a large number of sites are needed:
people are willing to drive their recyclables
only a few miles. If the location of drop-off
centers is well publicized, residents and
businesses will find it easy to participate.
4. Other steps to promote conveniences should
be to locate the trash and recyclables at the
same point as it reduce the wary of residents
and save them the time to travel. Simplify
separation and recovery procedures should
be the key to success.
5. Simple receptors such as ‘Igloo’ should be
included where the opening are designed
according to specific materials, for example,
long slit for paper, and round opening for
bottles. These could help to overcome the
separation contamination.
Education
1. Study waste streams (quantity and
composition analyses), recovery/recycling
systems (statistical information for analysis
and publication), markets for recyclables,
and problems of existing practices to decide
Page 4
 where there may be a facilitative/regulatory
role for the municipal authority. The
understanding of the above will helps in the
field of research and promotion of science
and technology that could contribute to a
recycling-based society.
2. Reduction of the stigma attached to waste
work.
3. Promoting voluntary activities of residents
by realizing them of the facts of them being
the waste generators, increase their
understanding of the responsibility they
should bear and roles they can play. To
change the public attitude of over
consumption
4. The disposal cost saving of recycling
programme should be published and make it
known to public. This shall bring awareness
to the public of the total cost saved in
disposal fees, the avoidance of future clean-
up costs, the costs of future land acquisition
or facility development and transportation.
By bring the facts that the residents are
going to enjoy the benefits of recycling
economically and environmentally, it would
helps to build awareness among community.
5. Other motivational techniques include:
school education programs, recycling
containers, and telephone hotlines.
6. Literature on how to source-separate should
be kept short and simple and distributed
widely and often. Residents need to know
exactly what is expected of them when
recyclables should be placed at the curb, the
location of drop-off centers, and the
materials that can be received.
7. Buyers have standards for the quality of the
recycled materials they use. Standards for
quality must be as important as cost
considerations, or the recycling program is
not likely to succeed. To ensure material
quality, Education programme should
include the directive as of how to prepare
the materials and what materials cannot be
recycled.
8. Highlight the problem of over consumption,
with the goal of reducing production and
consumption of unnecessary goods,
packaging and throwaways
Legislation
1. After consulting the major stakeholders,
advocate, where advisable, selective waste
reduction legislation on packaging
reduction, product redesign, and coding of
plastics.
2. Waste Control means promoting or
enforcing laws to encourage less consuming
and throwing away. One of the successful
example would be: -
Pay as you throw - Variable garbage
collection rates, based on volume or weight,
could serve as an incentive to reward those
who generate less waste and separate their
recyclables at the source. This could
discourage the use of throwaway goods.
3. Buy-Back Center for products and
packaging that are not practical to collect in
curbside or other recycling programs will
encourage end-user to bring back the
products or packaging to buy-back center,
thus facilitate collection, reuse, recycling, or
proper disposal.
4. City Hall setting an example by legislation
promoting procurement of products
containing a high content of recycled and
recyclable materials, and includes these in
government contracts. These could help to
stabilize the market and thus making recycle
business a profitable venture. Government
activities that could have an impact on
recycling should be identified and modified
to promote it.
5. City Hall should make a step to set up
recycling center or at least providing
suitable sites for recycling and other similar
facilities. Consideration should be given to
the compatibility with surrounding land
uses. Local building codes should be
revised to encourage or enforce accessible
storage space for recycled materials.
6. Household hazardous waste should be
prohibited or at least discouraged to go into
the municipal solid waste stream. City hall
could implement a separate drop point
where these waste being separated.
7. Reference can be made to existing laws in
countries such as:-
Japan
• Food Recycling Law
• Construction Materials Recycling
Act
• Waste Management (Disposal) and
Public Cleansing Law
US
• Pollution Prevention Packaging
Act
• Solid Waste Disposal Act
India
• Recycled plastic Manufacture and
Usage Rules
Page 5
7. CONCLUSION
Effective waste management should be based on
communities, industries, and individuals taking
responsibility for their own wastes. A good
formulation of municipal solid waste would need to
have the majority consent of the public and to their
convenience to promote the participation and
eventually the success of the programme.
The full range of waste management options has to
be considered, based on a comprehensive study of
the total waste stream, which has been carried out
under The Sustainable Urban Development Project
(SUDP). An incorporation of community's waste
management plan and financed as integral
components would be given the priority as it helps to
sustain the programme in the long run. Local
condition of existing recycling industries should be
considered as to avoid unnecessary redundancy of
work and leaving municipal focusing on the
necessity. These could be achieved by establishing
the hierarchy in the quantities and types of waste to
be managed through various methods. Objective
would be to attain the highest and best use of the
discarded/recovered material. A complete assessment
of environmental and health effects should be made
for all waste-management processes considered.
Waste management programs with these goals
decrease the environmental costs of natural resource
extraction, minimize pollution, conserve energy, and
provide a framework for continued wise resource
use. In this connection, by maximizing the recycling
of waste, and minimizing waste production, we hope
that in the long run, the city will achieve a
sustainable community.
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Solid Waste management in India: Status
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