Towards Sustainable Household Waste Management in Urban Areas: Determinants That Hindered the Recycling Activities in the City of Johor Bahru, Malaysia

TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE HOUSEHOLD WASTE Zainura Zainon Noor MANAGEMENT IN URBAN AREAS: DETERMINANTS THAT HINDERED THE RECYCLING ACTIVITIES IN THE CITY OF JOHOR BAHRU, MALAYSIA TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE HOUSEHOLD WASTE MANAGEMENT IN URBAN AREAS: DETERMINANTS THAT HINDERED THE RECYCLING ACTIVITIES IN THE CITY OF JOHOR BAHRU, MALAYSIA by Zainura Zainon Noor Center of Environmental Sustainability and Water Security, Research Institute of Sustainable Environment, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Abstract In Malaysia, household waste generation has increased manyfold over the last few decades. Regardless of composition and type, waste is mostly dumped in open areas and no significant attempts are being made to recycle. I more recent years, however, a paradigm shift from conventional waste collection to recycling has received more attention. This study assessed the determinants that were hindering household recycling at the city level. As one of the most rapidly developed urban areas in Malaysia, Johor Bahru City, the capital of Johor state, was selected as the case study. A total of 1,158 respondents participated in the research, which took the form of a face-to-face survey completed in various parts of Johor Bahru. The survey questionnaire was designed to identify the factors that might be restraining the progress of recycling activities in residential areas of the city. The survey data analysis found that the main determinants which were hindering recycling behavior among the city dwellers were: an improper implementation of the current “2+1” system, which in turn was not facilitating recycling activities in the surveyed areas; a lack of information about efficient and appropriate recycling methods; weak legal instruments related to recycling; the non-provision of bins for recyclable items in the surveyed areas; and low levels of awareness among the residents on recycling processes or methods. Malaysia Sustainable Cities Program, Working Paper Series 1 © Zainura Zainon Noor & Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2016 TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE HOUSEHOLD WASTE Zainura Zainon Noor MANAGEMENT IN URBAN AREAS: DETERMINANTS THAT HINDERED THE RECYCLING ACTIVITIES IN THE CITY OF JOHOR BAHRU, MALAYSIA Introduction The city is a man-made ecosystem, in which people draw upon the natural resources of land, water, air, and other organisms. But cities are also symbols and engines of societal progress. Sulong (1985) found that the development activities in urban areas were linked with the rate of urbanization. Therefore, urbanization is often seen as a measure of progress. Meanwhile, capitalist systems assume that consumption will increase steadily as people seek to improve their lives, and enhance their standards of living. But there is an inherent conflict: In urbanized areas, the management of solid wastes is a major challenge, particularly in the rapidly growing cities of the developing countries (Foo, 1997). Urbanization directly contributes to waste generation, and unscientific waste handling causes health hazards and urban environment degradation. Significant increases in solid waste generation have been viewed as a major drawback of Malaysia’s rapid urbanization (Murad and Siwar, 2007). Phrased more positively: to maintain high living standards in our cities, we need efficient ways to dealing with the wastes generated by those cities. Sixty-five per cent of the Malaysian population resides in cities and towns (Department of Statistic, 2011; Afroz and Masud, 2011). Kuala Lumpur, Melaka, and Selangor are amongst the states that generate the highest percentages of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the country (see Table 1). Since these states are also experiencing the fastest urbanization and economic growth rates in the country, it is likely that they will continue to produce high MSM in the future. Waste generation in these centers has increased more than 91 percent between 2000 and 2009 (Abdul Jalil, 2010) with most of the wastes dominated by recyclable materials, as shown in Table 2. This is mainly due to (1) the rapid development of urban areas, in large part the results of rural–urban migration; (2) an increase in per capita income; and (3) changes in consumption patterns brought about by development (Abdul Jalil, 2010; Periathamby et. al, 2009; Zamali et al., 2009). The statistics are compelling. In the last two decades, the amount of MSW generated in Kuala Lumpur has increased by a factor of six. Agamuthu and Fauziah (2011) reported that the amount of MSW generated in Kuala Lumpur was 586.80 tonnes per day in the year 1990, and it reached 3631.00 tonnes per day in 2009. Clearly, solid waste management is one of the most critical environmental problems faced by the local municipalities, and— arguably—is becoming the single biggest environmental threat to the country (Osman et. al, 2009). Overall waste composition in Malaysia is dominated by municipal solid wastes (64 percent), followed by industrial wastes (25 percent), commercial wastes (8 percent) and construction Malaysia Sustainable Cities Program, Working Paper Series 2 © Zainura Zainon Noor & Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2016 TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE HOUSEHOLD WASTE Zainura Zainon Noor MANAGEMENT IN URBAN AREAS: DETERMINANTS THAT HINDERED THE RECYCLING ACTIVITIES IN THE CITY OF JOHOR BAHRU, MALAYSIA wastes at 3 percent (EU-SWMC, 2009). About 80 percent of municipal solid wastes that are disposed at landfills are recyclables (MHLG, 2006). Residential areas are one of the primary sources of municipal solid wastes, followed by institutional and commercial wastes (Tariq and Mostafizur, 2007). Municipal solid wastes generally consist of some 20 different categories: food wastes, paper (mixed), cardboard, plastics (rigid, film ,and foam), textile, wood wastes, metals (ferrous or non-ferrous), diapers, newsprint, high grade and fine paper, fruit wastes, green wastes, batteries, construction wastes and glass; these categories can be further grouped into organic and inorganic (Amin and Go, 2012). MSW generated tonnes/day Urban Center 1970 1980 1990 2002 2006 Kuala Lumpur 98.90 310.50 586.80 2754.00 3100.00 Johor Bahru (Johor) 41.10 99.60 174.80 215.00 242.00 Ipoh (Perak) 22.50 82.70 162.20 208.00 234.00 Georgetown (Pulau Pinang) 53.40 83.00 137.20 221.00 249.00 Klang (Selangor) 18.00 65.00 122.80 478.00 538.00 Kuala Terengganu 8.70 61.80 121.00 137.00 154.0 (Terengganu) Kota Bharu (Kelantan) 9.10 56.50 102.90 129.50 146.00 Kuantan (Pahang) 7.10 45.20 85.30 174.00 196.00 Seremban (Negeri 13.40 45.10 85.20 165.00 186.00 Sembilan) Melaka 14.40 29.10 46.80 562.00 632.00 Table 1. Generation of MSW in major urban areas in peninsular Malaysia from 1970 to 2056i Waste Years Composition 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Organic 63.70 54.40 48.30 48.40 45.70 43.20 44.80 Paper 7.00 8.00 23.60 8.90 9.00 23.70 16.00 Plastic 2.50 0.40 9.40 3.00 3.90 11.30 15.00 Glass 2.50 0.40 4.00 3.00 3.90 3.20 3.00 Metal 6.40 2.20 5.90 4.60 5.10 4.20 3.30 Textiles 1.30 2.20 NA NA 2.10 1.50 2.80 Wood 6.50 1.80 NA NA NA 0.70 6.70 Others 0.90 0.30 8.80 8.80 4.30 12.30 8.40 Table 2. Waste composition (% of relative weight) in Malaysia from 1975 to 2005 Regardless of their composition or type, wastes for the most part are simply dumped in open areas, without any attempt at recovering or recycling (Amin and Go, 2012). By one estimate, more than 90 per cent of Malaysia Sustainable Cities Program, Working Paper Series 3 © Zainura Zainon Noor & Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2016 TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE HOUSEHOLD WASTE Zainura Zainon Noor MANAGEMENT IN URBAN AREAS: DETERMINANTS THAT HINDERED THE RECYCLING ACTIVITIES IN THE CITY OF JOHOR BAHRU, MALAYSIA total wastes in Malaysia are disposed of in landfill sites (Afroz and Masud, 2011). Most landfill sites, moreover, are open dumping areas, and thus represent serious environmental and social threats (Manaf et.al, 2009; Yunus and Kadir, 2003). Recycling as a sustainable waste management strategy presents a major paradigm shift (Bolaane, 2006). Experience elsewhere suggests that waste separation and recycling can yield huge economic and environmental benefits (Afroz and Masud, 2009). Quantifying the social benefits of recycling, however, can be difficult. For example: the pollution that is avoided through recycling is “invisible” (because it never existed). The reduced resource depletion that results from recycling is equally hard to discern, because the environmental damage that has been avoided would have been scattered over many jurisdictions, both at home and abroad. But the hard-to-quantify is no less real, nor are benefits that happen to be shared broadly. There is ample scientific evidence demonstrating that virgin material extraction is resource-intensive and carries with it many adverse environmental impacts. By contrast, the recycling of metal, glass, and plastics nationwide saved 24.7 million metric tonnes (MMT) of CO2 equivalent in 2012, with 20.7 MMT coming from metal recycling alone (U.S. EPA, 2013). Furthermore, recycling could potentially reduce waste disposal and transportation costs, and prolong the lifespans of landfills (Folz, 1991; Muttamara et al., 1994; Suttibak and Nitivattananon, 2008). To date, most studies of the waste challenge in Malaysia have focused on the status of solid waste management, rather than on recycling. As a result—and especially in the absence of any systematic analysis or periodic documentation from any local authority—information on recycling is limited and outdated (Nasir et al., 2000). Most benchmarking and standards regarding household solid waste recycling are the products of overseas research, which is not particularly relevant to the contemporary Malaysian experience. What is needed at present, therefore, is a reliable overview on the existing household solid waste recycling policy in Malaysia.

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