Towards low carbon society in Iskandar Malaysia: Implementation and feasibility of community organic waste composting.
Rapid population growth and urbanisation have generated large amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) in many cities. Up to 40-60% of Malaysia's MSW is reported to be food waste where such waste is highly putrescible and can cause bad odour and public health issue if its disposal is delayed. In this study, the implementation of community composting in a village within Iskandar Malaysia is presented as a case study to showcase effective MSW management and mitigation of GHG emission. The selected village, Felda Taib Andak (FTA), is located within a palm oil plantation and a crude palm oil processing mill. This project showcases a community-composting prototype to compost food and oil palm wastes into high quality compost. The objective of this article is to highlight the economic and environment impacts of a community-based composting project to the key stakeholders in the community, including residents, oil palm plantation owners and palm oil mill operators by comparing three different scenarios, through a life cycle approach, in terms of the greenhouse gas emission and cost benefit analysis. First scenario is the baseline case, where all the domestic waste is sent to landfill site. In the second scenario, a small-scale centralised composting project was implemented. In the third scenario, the data obtained from Scenario 2 was used to do a projection on the GHG emission and costing analysis for a pilot-scale centralised composting plant. The study showed a reduction potential of 71.64% on GHG emission through the diversion of food waste from landfill, compost utilisation and significant revenue from the compost sale in Scenario 3. This thus provided better insight into the feasibility and desirability in implementing a pilot-scale centralised composting plant for a sub-urban community in Malaysia to achieve a low carbon and self-sustainable society, in terms of environment and economic aspects.
Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.
Cassendra Phun-Chien
CP
Bong
Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.
Rebecca Kar Yee
RKY
Goh
Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia; UTM Low Carbon Asia Research Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.
Jeng-Shiun
JS
Lim
Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia; UTM Low Carbon Asia Research Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.
Wai Shin
WS
Ho
Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia; UTM Low Carbon Asia Research Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia. Electronic address: ctlee@utm.my.
Chew-Tin
CT
Lee
Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia; UTM Low Carbon Asia Research Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.
Haslenda
H
Hashim
Faculty of Management, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.
Nur Naha
NN
Abu Mansor
Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia; UTM Low Carbon Asia Research Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.
Chin Siong
CS
Ho
UTM Low Carbon Asia Research Centre, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia.
Abdul Rahim
AR
Ramli
Solid Waste Management Research Center, Graduate School of Environmental Science, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan.
Fujiwara
F
Takeshi
D002244:Carbon; D002947:Cities; D017752:Greenhouse Effect; D008296:Malaysia; D012037:Refuse Disposal
D002244:Carbon
Community project; Composting; Cost-benefit analysis; GHG emission reduction; Low carbon society; Sustainability