Food Waste Malaysia

8/10/2019 Food Waste Malaysia

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Food Waste Management in Malaysia: P a g e | 36

Journal of Industrial Research & Technology, Volume 2, Issue 1, April 2012

An International Journal

HATAM Publishers

J. Ind. Res. & Technology 2(1), 36-39, 2012

Journal homepage: http://www.hgpub.com/index.php/jirt

Food Waste Management in Malaysia- Current situation and future

management options

Azlina Abdul Hamid,, Anees Ahmad , Mahamad Hakimi Ibrahim , Nik Norulaini Nik Abdul Rahman

Division of Environmental Technology, School of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia,11800 Penang, Malaysia.

2Division of Analytical and Environmental Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, A.M.U. Aligarh,202002, India.

3Division of Biology, School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia.*Corresponding author, Phone:+60-102060336, Fax: 60-4-6573678, E-mail: [email protected]

ARTICLE INFORMATION ABSTRACT

Article historyReceived January 10, 2012Revised February 20, 2012Accepted March 05, 2012Available online April 30, 2012

The high amount of food waste generated is the main cause to most issuesrelated to landfills such as foul odor, toxic leachate, emission of greenhouse

gases and vermin infestation. Although food waste issue is as critical asmunicipal solid waste issue, the condition is such that municipal solid wastemanagement systems in Malaysia are also very poorly conducted. Thus, theaim of this paper is to discuss the possible options of food wastemanagement systems that are suitable for implementation in Malaysia.

KeywordsFood waste;Management;Municipal solid waste;Waste prevention;Food waste composition

2011 HATAM: Publishers. All rights Reserved.

1. IntroductionThe problem of food waste (FW) is a global

issue nowadays and even the developed countriesare much concerned to find its appropriate

management solution along with the municipal solidwaste (MSW). Countries such as Korea and Japanseparate FW from MSW due to food wastedegradation, insufficient areas for landfills, problemswith transportation of FW to disposal sites andproblems arising from landfill and incineration (Kimand Kim, 2010). Malaysia on the other hand, istrying its best to solve the basic problem ofmunicipal solid waste management only and findingthe most environmentally friendly solutions whichare acceptable by the public. The FW is treated aspart of MSW and a separate FW managementsystem does not exist in Malaysia. Thus togetherwith efforts to solve MSW issues, Malaysia shouldalso consider finding solutions for FW matter as

MSW is highly related to FW as it constitutesapproximately 60% of MSW (Kathrivale, et al. 2003,Saeed, et al. 2009, Hassan, et al. 2001).

In 2005, municipal solid waste generated was

7.34 million tons and is predicted to increase to 10.9million tons in 2020 (Alias, 2010). Food wastecontent is about 60% of the MSW, thus theestimated amount of food waste generated in 2005is 4.404 million tons and is estimated to increase to6.54 million tons in 2020. The high amount of foodwaste generated is the main cause to most issuesrelated to landfills such as foul odor, toxic leachate,emission of greenhouse gases and vermininfestation (Lee, et al. 2007). Although food wasteissue is as critical as municipal solid waste issue,the condition is such that municipal solid wastemanagement systems in Malaysia are also verypoorly conducted (Hassan, et al. 1999). Thus, theaim of this paper is to discuss the possible options

Journal of Industrial Research & Technology(ISSN 2229-9467)


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of food waste management systems that aresuitable for implementation in Malaysia.

2. Current food waste situation in MalaysiaMunicipal solid waste generated daily in

Malaysia range from 0.8-0.9 kg per household in

general and about 1.62 kg per household in denselypopulated cities such as Kuala Lumpur with foodwaste constituting approximately 60% of the totalsolid waste (Saeed, et al. 2009, Kathrivale, et al.2003). Kathrivale, et al. (2003) also stated that 85-90% of total solid waste are organic wastes. Table 1shows the composition of Malaysian food waste.

Figure 1 : Hierarchy of waste managementoption (Cox, et al. 2010)

Table 1: Composition (%) of food waste on wet weight basis.Components Malaysian food

waste

Japanese food waste (Ohkouchi

& Inoue, 2007)Moisture 78.09 77.5Ash 1.42 1.68Total Sugar 10.36 9.85Carbohydrate 8.05 7.79Protein 3.50 3.99Fats 5.22 5.41Fiber (cellulose, lignin, hemicelluloses) 4.64 4.72Note:Malaysian food waste data is taken from a laboratory work by the author to study food wastecomposition from a household in Malaysia. The above data is not regarded as representative of thewhole countries food waste composition but only used as a sample reference.

Table 2 :Food waste recycling methodsFood waste recycling

optionsDescription Examples of countries

applying recycling optionsAnaerobic digestion/

Co-digestionFood waste is collected and fermented to

produce methane gas which is collected asrenewable energy (Knipe, 2005)

Germany, Great Britain.

Composting Home composting (food waste digesters) orin-vessel composting facility whereby the

compost product can be used as fertilizersor soil amendment (Knipe, 2005, Kim and

Kim, 2010).

Great Britain, Korea.

Dry or wet feed Facility that processes and converts foodwastes into safe animal feeds (Kim and Kim,

2010).

Korea

The data given shows chemical content inMalaysian food waste compared to Japanese foodwaste content. Nevertheless, this data is notrepresentative of all Malaysian food wastes as thereis no actual study on food waste compositioncollected from households or disposed at landfills. Astudy by Afizah (2006) shows that moisture contentof municipal solid waste collected from PulauBurung landfill contains 54.1% moisture andKathrivale, et al. (2003) study showed moisturecontent of 55%. Nevertheless, home food waste

moisture content is higher as shown in Table 1 andis in agreement to the food waste tested in Japan(Ohkouchi and Inoue, 2007). This increase in

moisture could be due to the water from washing ofplates and pots that were inevitably introduced tothe waste mixture.

Food waste in Malaysia is not segregated atsource nor separated from other solid wastes atlandfill sites before disposal. At present there are289 landfills in Malaysia and only 7 out of totallandfills are sanitary landfills (Syed Ali, 2009). Solidwastes are not normally recycled by Malaysianseither by composting or by other recycling methods.Separation of wastes such as papers, plastics,

glass, rubber, ferrous and non-ferrous metals areusually done by garbage collection worker andscavengers at disposal sites (Hassan, et al. 2000).

Waste Prevention

Reuse

Recycling

Recovery

Safe

Disposal


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Food wastes with other organic wastes such asgarden waste and timber products are dumpeddirectly into landfills without any treatmentwhatsoever. Nevertheless, a positive turn of eventsrecently shows that Malaysian government isconcerned about the ever rising solid waste issues

in the country. The government will enforceMalaysians to separate solid waste at homeaccording to category by giving free garbage bins bythe year 2013. Datuk Nadzri Yahya, the DirectorGeneral of the Department of Solid WasteManagement, said that the Prime Minister, DatukSeri Najib Razak demanded during the last cabinetmeeting that Solid Waste Management Act andPublic Cleansing 2007 to be executed as soon asearly next year. For the execution of this act, 2separate garbage bins will be provided for everyhousehold that is one for organic solid waste andone for recyclable waste material (Alzahrin, 2010).

3. Types of food waste management in theworldFood waste issue, although has always been

frequently regarded as main contributor togreenhouse gasses, only recently received muchattention even in developed countries. In order toassess management options, that option must havedetailed health, safety, environmental, social,economic and operational risk to determine whetherthe waste management strategies are suitable forimplementation (Knipe, 2005).

There are many types of food waste

management. Basically, all waste managementmethods should follow the hierarchy shown in Figure1. Waste prevention is set as the top prioritybecause that is the source of waste generation.Reuse of waste includes using second hand goodsbut in the case of food waste, not many foods in itsoriginal form can be reused due to edibility issue.Recycling of food waste in Malaysia is rarelyconducted. But the importance of recycling is at thethird priority. Examples of food recycling methodsthat some countries have applied are as shown inTable 2. Recovery level usually includes energyrecovery from certain types of waste management

for example incineration. The final option for wastemanagement is safe disposal at an organized landfillsystem.

4. Food waste management option for MalaysiaSuitability of food waste management is highly

dependent on the costs of setting up and runningthe system. Based on the hierarchy shown in Figure1, normally the most expensive part of wastemanagement is to set up highly advanced facility forrecycling, recovery and safe disposal. The least costused is for the first priority and the second prioritythat is waste prevention and reuse respectively.

Nevertheless, this is the most difficult part toimplement as it involves more human participationcompared to the other three. Human attitude andbehavior has always been the most difficult part tomake a change to as shown in a study by group ofresearchers in United Kingdom on peoples waste

prevention habits (Cox, et al. 2010). In order toproduce change, steps to tackle this matter througheducation, campaigns and policies must beconducted continuously. The effect of wasteprevention is enormous on the generation rate offood waste (Cox, et al. 2010). Thus, this is theultimate step that Malaysians must take in order toreduce food waste generation as a whole.

One of the prominent recycling methods of foodwaste and municipal solid waste is by incinerationand has been successfully applied in countries suchas Japan. In Malaysia, however, the previous BlueValley project to build a mega-incinerator in Broga,

Pahang has led to many serious objections from theresidents in that area and most environmentally-concerned non-government organization (The Sun,2007). The government has finally decided to cancelthe project (The Star, 2007). Recently, there havebeen articles in the newspaper that the governmentis planning to build mini-incinerators all overMalaysia such as in Melaka and Johor (Bernama,2009). These new projects are bound to receivecontinuous protests as incineration ash by-product ishighly toxic to the environment (Balifokus, 2006).Besides the hazardous ash by-product ofincineration, the setup and running costs of such

incinerator are also very expensive. The previouslycancelled incinerator project costs 425 million USdollar.

Other potential food waste processing facilityincludes anaerobic digestion, dry or wet animalfeeds and in-vessel composting (Table 2). Thegovernment should be opened to these technologiesas the by-products are relatively safe, can be usedas soil amendment or safe to be disposed at landfillsas well as useful for energy recovery (Kim and Kim,2010). The private sector should also take thisopportunity to enter this field as not only it helps inrecycling the abundant of food waste but also

producing revenue from sale of biogas, animal feedsand agriculture compost.

There are also some other options that can betaken into consideration for example producingenergy products from food waste. Currently, thereare proven and applied technologies to producemethane (Han and Shin, 2004) and hydrogen (Kimet al. 2009). Other potential technologies includeproducing oil (Minowa et al. 1995), lactic acid (Sakaiet al. 2000) and plastic (Sakai et al. 2004). Althoughmost of these technologies are only available in labscale, future interests and investment should bechanneled to develop such beneficial technology

into pilot scale project.5. Conclusion


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Several food waste management options forMalaysia have been discussed. The most importantpart of waste management is to apply wasteprevention and reuse to all Malaysians. Althoughthis is undoubtedly the most difficult, the Malaysiangovernment and non-government organizations

should consider prompt implementation of thisoption due to its current and long term futurebenefits.

AcknowledgementThe authors would like to thank Institute of

Postgraduate Studies for providing scholarships andgrants in order to fulfill completion of the firstauthors Masters degree program.

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