E3S Web of Conferences 48, 04007 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/20184804007 IWGM 2018 Toward integrated and sustainable waste management system in University of Malaya: UM zero waste campaign * Sumiani Yusoff Dean, Sustainability Science Research Cluster, Universiti Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Abstract. With the escalated increase in municipal solid waste (MSW) generation in Malaysia reaching a shocking 38,000 ton/day in 2017, a sustainable waste management system is much desired. Nationwide, there are 176 landfills but only 8 are sanitary landfill with the rest are open dumpsites. In the campus of University of Malaya, UM Zero Waste Campaign (UM ZWC) was introduced in 2011 to start a long-term campaign to achieve an integrated and sustainable waste management model and ultimately a zero-waste campus. Since year 2015, UM ZWC is fully funded by Sustainability Science Research Cluster of UM (Susci) as one of the living labs of UM as well as by JPPHB under the RMK-11 budget. UM ZWC operating projects including in house composting center, food waste segregation scheme, research composting emission and waste characterization, anaerobic digestion (AD), used clothes collection program, wood waste separate collection, e-waste collection and drop-off recycling collection were initiated under the campaign. Since the inception of the project in 2011 until December 2017, almost over 620 tons of solid waste has been diverted from disposal in landfill with composting, AD, recycling, re-use and energy recovery. A roadmap of UM ZWC was drawn up in 2013, with a goal to achieve 60% landfill diversion by year 2040. In the next 5-10 years, UM ZWC plays a vital role to formalize the recycling collection in UM and further increase the organic waste recycling with green waste shredding and composting. Besides environmental benefits (pollution prevention and carbon emission reduction), UM ZWC brings various benefits such as academic research opportunities for UM, contribute in UM LCCF (Low carbon city framework) target and serve as platform to improve students soft skills and entrepreneur skill. Multi stakeholders participation, support form top management and industrial collaboration are the key factors that are able to drive the development of a sustainable waste management model in UM campus. 1 Introduction household waste every day. Rapidly growing population, improved quality of life and rising economic growth are Solid waste can be referred as unwanted waste is that the factors that contribute challenges to the management derived from the animal and human activities. It is also of solid waste [11]. With significant improvement of can be generated from industrial, institution, residential, living standards, it is expected that solid waste commercial, construction and demolition activities. Solid generation increases over the years without any waste can be classified based on its contents including transformation in the attitudes and behavior of materials such as paper, plastics, glass, metal and Malaysians in managing their waste. With the utilization organic waste. Moreover, it also can be categorized of plastic and paper materials especially in packaging based on hazard potential incorporated with radioactive, where those materials become easily dispensable to the flammable, toxic or non-toxic. While solid waste consumers, solid waste generation increases at management is defined as discipline associated with uncontrollable rate [13, 2]. The least favored disposal control of generation, storage, collection, transportation, method is landfilling, as waste should be separated and processing and disposal of solid waste materials in the treated (physical, chemical, or biological treatment), but best way to deal with the range of public health, unfortunately these options are costly and time- conservation, economic and other environmental consuming [14]. considerations. The main goal of solid waste Landfill is the most economical and hence most management is to minimize and eliminate adverse common MSW disposal method in Malaysia. effects on human health and environment to aid Nationwide, there are 176 operating landfills but only 11 economic development and quality of life. of them are sanitary landfills with seven in Peninsula Generally, solid waste composition in Malaysia Malaysia, one in Sabah and three in Sarawak. Besides largely constitute of municipal solid waste (MSW) 64% the operating landfills, there are 114 closed landfills in with the remaining consisting of industrial waste, the country which required post closure treatment and commercial waste, and construction waste [12]. In 2007, management for at least 30 years. The total capacity of with a population more than 25 million, Malaysian MSW disposed in the current 176 operating landfills is households produce approximately 18,000 tons of more than 30,000 ton/day and the total size of operating * Corresponding author: [email protected] © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). E3S Web of Conferences 48, 04007 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/20184804007 IWGM 2018 landfills is 2,528.2 ha. In total, the size of operating and infinite resources with no observable environmental closed landfills is 3,446.2 ha, which is 0.01% of consequences to the public led to over-consumption, Malaysia total land area. In Malaysia, approximately which produces unnecessary waste ultimately. Without 93.5% of municipal solid waste (MSW) is sent without the support and commitment from households, local sorting to the landfill or open dumpsites that have no gas authorities, private concessionaires, and other recovery, and only 5.5% of MSW is being recycled and stakeholders in organizing solid waste, source separation 1.0% composted [1]. Table 1 shows the present number and recycling practice would be a major challenge. of operating and non-operating solid waste disposal sites It was reported that in 2003, the amount of solid in Malaysia. waste generation per capita per day ranged between 0.5 up to 0.8 kg but recently it had increase to between 0.5 to Table 1. Number of operating and non-operating solid waste 2.5 kg, especially in the major city such as Kuala disposal sites in Malaysia. Lumpur and Petaling Jaya [7]. Table 2 shows that food waste and organic material are found to have highest Operatin Operatin portion in solid waste generated in Malaysia which g non- g Non- ranges between 32% to 68.4%. sanitary sanitary operatin landfill landfill g landfill Tota Table 2. The Material Composition of Municipal Solid Waste State sites sites sites l Obtained from Various Studies and Site (Chua et al, 2001) Johor 12 2 23 37 Comp 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 Kedah 8 1 6 15 onent 01 01 02 03 04 05 05 07 10 Kelantan 13 0 6 19 Food 68 32 56 37 49 45 47. 42 43 Melaka 2 0 5 7 waste .4 .3 .4 .3 5 .5 & Negeri 7 0 11 18 organi Sembilan cs Pahang 16 0 16 32 Mix 11 16 13 18 17 24 N 24 25 Perak 17 0 12 29 plastic .8 .1 .9 .1 A .7 .2 Perlis 1 0 1 2 s Mix 6. 29 8. 16 9. 7 18. 12 22 Pulau 2 0 1 3 paper 3 .5 2 .4 7 5 .9 .7 Pinang Textil 1. 3. 1. 3. N N 2.1 2. 0. Sabah 19 0 2 21 es 5 4 3 4 A A 3 5 9 Sarawak 46 6 14 66 Rubbe 0. 2 0. 1. N N N 2. N Selangor 5 4 14 23 r & 5 4 3 A A A 5 A Leath Terenggan 8 0 12 20 er u Wood 0. 7 1. 3. N N 4.4 5. N Federal 0 0 7 7 7 8 7 A A 1 7 A Territory Yard 4. N 6. 3. N N 2.7 N N of Kuala waste 6 A 9 2 A A 2 A A Lumpur Ferro 2. 3. 2. 2. 2 6 N 5. 2. Federal 1 0 0 1 us 7 7 1 7 A 3 1 Territory Glass 1. 5. 1. 2. 3. 3 N 1. 2. of Labuan 4 5 5 6 7 A 8 6 TOTAL 157 13 130 300 Pamp N N N 5. N N N 3. N Source: JPSPN (2015a) ers A A A 1 A A A 81 A Other 2. 1. 8. 5. 18 15 21. 2. 1. Solid waste has constantly been an issue particularly 1 9 4 3 .2 93 6 8 in the amount of solid waste generated [15]. The Total 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 increasing affluence leads to uncontrollably high amount 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 of solid waste production despite the potential of source separation and recycling in Malaysia. Lack of public Food wastes produce greenhouse gases (GHG) conscientious in today’s modern lifestyle has resulted to emissions and have an influence on climate change [6]. increasing amount of waste generated and disposed at Generally, these emissions have been identified as an landfills especially when it comes to packaging, as these critical environmental concern in the waste sector [8]. In materials are dispensable to them [4]. Education and Asian countries, it is estimated that the largest increase individual upbringing contribute considerably towards of food waste generation could be ranged from 278 to environmental awareness, how society perceives the 416 million tones that can contribute to global issue, as well as how they decide on their daily behavior, anthropogenic emissions ranging from 8 to 10% [16]. particularly in managing solid waste [3]. Besides the Apart from the waste treatment, GHG emissions from influence of socio-economic factors, perception of waste handling, transportation and operation of 2 2 E3S Web of Conferences 48, 04007 (2018) https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/20184804007 IWGM 2018 machinery are also significant especially due to the separation at source among campus communities, serve utilization of fossil-based energy.