Sanitary Landfills: Toward Sustainable Development - lumes

Figure 3: Total population and total solid wastes generated in Malaysia
Total (millions)
25
20
15
10
5
0
LUMES 2000-2001
Sanitary Landfills: Toward Sustainable Development
population
solid waste
Source:
a) Department of Statistics,
Malaysia, 2001
b) World Development Indicators
database, 2001
c) Agamuthu, 2001
d) Gregory, 1996
For the past two decades, Malaysia has gone through a rapid economic growth and urbanisation
process (Figure 2). The steady economic growth has led to an increase in per capital income and
the living standard. This has changed the consumption patterns where more packaging and
disposable products are consumed. This increased in production and consumption and the change
in consumption patterns also attributes to the urbanisation process where more and more rural
people move to urban areas where a huge portion of the generated waste is from the urban areas.
According to a survey done by Nasir, et al (1998) on 30 local authorities in Malaysia, it is found
that the per capital generation rate varies from 0.45 to 1.44kg/capital/day which the lowest waste
generation rate was from a rural area while the highest waste generation rate was from an urban
area. This clearly shows that the urban population generates more waste than the rural population
as they have different living standard and consumption patterns. The solid waste production has
thus inevitably increased due to the urbanisation and economic growth (Figure 3). Population
which grows at a rate of 2.6% per year also increases the solid waste generation (Department of
Statistics, Malaysia, 2001). Solid waste has increased from 2.5 million tonnes per year in 1991 to
estimated 8 million tonnes per year in 2000 (Agamuthu, 2001).
Just as the per capital solid waste generation rate varies between different areas, the solid waste
composition varies in different parts of the country as well. Generally, the solid wastes in
Malaysia are mainly organic in nature and have low calorific value and high moisture (Figure 4).
Basically, rural areas have higher organic waste compared to urban areas. The composition of the
solid waste of different areas is shown in the Table 3.
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