Isramart: Efficient Solid Waste Management, The Answer To Lower Carbon Emissions

Isramart news:
Aware of the current climatic changes affecting the globe, Malaysia is committed to reduce its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to 40 per cent by 2020 as compared to the CO2 emissions in 2005.

This commitment, pledged by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak at the Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark end of last year is however depending on the assistance from developed nations.

Najib’s pledge is seen as a positive move for Malaysia to become a country with low carbon emissions.

This is so as Najib is aware that climate change and global warming would indirectly hit Malaysia’s economic survival as a developing nation.

Climate changes due to uncertain weather such as rainfall, thunderstorms and erosions at several spots along the country’s coastline would directly hit the economy of the affected areas.

In other words, the nation has no other alternative apart from reducing its greenhouse gas emissions including the CO2 to impede carbon effects from climate changes and global warming.

1GREEN MALAYSIA

The Deputy Under Secretary for Environmental Conservation at the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, Dr Gary W. Theseira, said the government had identified three key strategies in reducing carbon emissions by the year 2020.

“One of the strategies is the management of solid wastes,” he said when tabling Malaysia’s commitment in reducing the greenhouse gases at the recently-held 2010 Waste Management Conference and Exhibition here.

The event, themed “1Green Malaysia” was organised by a non-governmental organisation (NGO) on environment, – Environmental Management and Research Association of Malaysia (ENSEARCH).

On the solid waste management strategy, Dr Theseira said the government had determined the target for the country’s recycling of solid waste at 22 per cent by 2020 as against five per cent now.

Via the construction of more sanitary waste disposal sites, the government had fixed that 75 per cent of methane (CH4)gas produced at the disposal sites to be used to generate electricity in the process known as methane recovery.

CH4 is among the greenhouse gases apart from CO2 that threatens the world’s ozone layer and among the factors that cause global warming. Most of the methane gas produced in the country came from the garbage disposal sites.

ELECTRICITY

Compared against the ‘conventional’ landfill garbage disposal dumps that give rise to risks such as diseases, stench and environmental pollution a sanitary waste disposal site has a network of pipes that recovers the methane gas before converting it to electricity.

Dr Theseira said apart from the strategy on management of solid wastes, the other two strategies are boosting energy efficiency as well as the renewable energy.

By the year 2020, demand for electricity in the country is expected to reach 20,000 Megawatts and for that the government had fixed the level of energy efficiency boost to three per cent as compared to now.

He said the boost in energy efficiency is expected to reduce nine million tonnes of CO2 emissions while the renewable energy is expected to lower the CO2 by 11 million tonnes.

As for the management of solid wastes, 10 tonnes of CO2 can be reduced.

“These three sectors are able to reduce a total of 30 million tonnes of CO2,” he said.

Another panelist, who is also an expert on solid waste management, Universiti Malaya’s (UM) Prof Dr P. Agumuthu said the government should give serious attention on the management of solid waste.

This is so as up to 12 per cent of the global methane production came from poorly managed garbage disposal sites.

Dr Agumuthu said solid waste management has been identified as among the three major causes of ‘environmental degradation’ in many Asian nations.

GARBAGE

He said in the Malaysian context, 90 per cent of the garbage produced was disposed off at 290 disposal sites. Out of these, only a small number are environmental-friendly sanitary waste disposal sites.

Out of the total number of garbage disposal dumps only 176 are still active.

Earlier, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) expert on garbage disposal management Prof Ir Dr Hassan Basri said the country’s solid waste disposal system was going into a critical stage in the long term as only seven of the 290 garbage disposal sites were that of sanitary facilities.

This means that only 2.5 per cent of the total number of garbage disposal dumps in the country are well managed with the rest operating as landfill facilities that give rise to water and air pollution.

Water pollution is linked to the leachate (the liquid that drains or ‘leaches’ from a landfill) into underground water resources while air pollution is due to the release of CH4 caused by the decomposition of the garbage.

Environmental activists also put the blame on robust economic development that caused high level of land usage. As a result the construction of a garbage disposal site turns out to be a difficult and tedious task.

This issue is also closely related to the ever increasing size in population particularly that in the urban zones.

Dr Agumuthu said the best measure to reduce the the amount of wastes is the use of green practice such as recycling and separate of garbage at the source apart from the authorities improvising the existing infrastructure.

“This is so as the management of solid waste has the potential of reducing some 20 per cent of the global greenhouse gases”, he said, adding that the time has come for the Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Act 2007 to be enforced to ensure more efficient solid waste management in the country.