Sanitary Landfills: Toward Sustainable Development - lumes

LUMES 2000-2001
Sanitary Landfills: Toward Sustainable Development
of waste compare to only RM35 per tonne for sanitary landfill (Nasir, et al, 1998). Thus, it is
more appropriate to improve the current landfills situation i.e. from crude dumping landfills to
sanitary landfills. The following improvement can be done to minimise the negative
environmental and socio-economic impacts (Sakurai, 1990):
i) Daily cover
ii) Improvement of access road
iii) Construction of fencing
iv) Weighbridge
v) Ensure of no open burning at the disposal site
vi) Establishment of surface drainage system to divert rainwater from filtering into landfill
cell
vii) Introduction of buffer zone between disposal site and housing area
viii) Construction of leachate collection and gas venting facilities
ix) Ensure no co-disposal of hazardous waste
If the sanitary landfill is properly designed and maintained, it will have less negative
environmental impacts compared to other methods. It is of course impossible to make overnight
changes to upgrade all the crude dumping landfills to sanitary landfills. The improvement of the
landfill has to be done gradually according to the country’s condition and financial and technical
abilities. The Ampang Jajar landfill in Seberang Perai is an example how the local authorities
managed to convert the dumpsites into sanitary landfill within two years by using its limited
financial resources and expertise (Ramly and Mamat, 2001). Instead of simply transferring the
sophisticated landfill technologies which is definitely beyond the financial and technical abilities
of the municipality, the Seberang Perai Municipality sought advice from Japanese International
Corporation Agency to upgrade the landfill by localising the techniques used.
In order to provide more efficient solid waste management and to release the financial burden of
the local authorities, solid waste management has become part of the country privatisation policy.
There are four consortium companies which have been appointed for 20 years concession for
solid waste management in 4 different regions (Agamuthu, 2001) (Nasir, 1998). It is important to
note that the local authorities have to ensure the standard of services that provided by these
concession companies are not deteriorated and the environment disamenities that associated to
solid waste is kept to the minimum.
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