KKKH 2184 - ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING Project 2

Waste Characterization

Place : Kolej Tun Hussein Onn Date : 3rd April 2013 Group 6 1. MUHAMMAD AFIQ RUZAINI 2. AMALINA BINTI ZAKARIA 3. FARIQ BIN AZAHA 4. SITI AISHAH BINTI SHAHARUDIN 5. LEE ANN CHZE 6. NUR FARHANA HAMZAH Lecturer : 1. MR. ZAWAWI SAMBA BIN MOHAMED 2. DR. SURAYA BINTI SHARIL A137593 A137617 A137709 A138135 A138170 A138165

A) INTRODUCTION

1. Solid waste management in Malaysia Solid waste is one of a major environmental problem in Malaysia and is significantly reducing our environment capacity to sustain life. Currently, over 17,000 tonnes of waste produced each day in Malaysia. The amount of waste generated continues to increase due to the increasing population and development, and less than 5% of the waste is being recycled. Despite the massive amount and complexity of waste produced, the standards of waste management in Malaysia are still poor. These include outdated and poor documentation of waste generation rates and its composition, inefficient storage and collection systems, disposal of municipal wastes with toxic and hazardous waste, indiscriminate disposal or dumping of wastes and inefficient utilization of disposal site space. Improper solid waste management (SWM) also contributes to climate change decomposing waste produces methane and production of new products to meet demand emits greenhouse gases and utilizes natural resources. Global 3R Initiative aims to promote the "3Rs" (reduce, reuse and recycle) globally in order to build a sound material-cycle society through the effective use of resources and materials and it was agreed upon at the G8 Sea Island Summitas a new G8 initiative and the UN Millennium Development Goal(MDG) aims to ensure environmental sustainability because of the prevalence of unsustainable production and rapid consumption of virgin raw material/ natural resources. It is achievable through effective and efficient 3R programmes which are vital to reverse the trends of environmental unsustainability. Failing in managing solid waste leads to increased operation cost and damaging the environment. In Malaysia, waste management and waste minimization is not the sole responsibility of Local authorithies but most government agencies like the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Ministry of Environment, Ministry Of Health, the various academic institutions and NGOs should work together to achieve this.

2. Solid waste management in UKM

Waste sorting is the process by which waste is separated into different elements. Waste sorting can occur manually at the household and collected through curb side collection schemes, or automatically separated in materials recovery facilities or mechanical biological treatment systems.Waste can also be sorted in a civic amenity site.

Waste segregation means division of waste into dry and wet waste. Dry waste includes paper, cardboard, glass, tin cans etc. Wet waste, on the other hand, refers to organic wastes such as vegetable peels, left-over food etc.Waste can also be segregated on basis of biodegradable or non-biodegradable waste.

The most rational way to cope with all this rubbish is to collect it at source in each area and to separate it immediately where possible. The way that waste is sorted must reflect local disposal systems.

3. Definition of residence hall waste Residence hall waste can be classified as below Paper E.g. newspaper,magazines,office paper,tissue,sanitary tools & diaper,cardboard,non-recyclable paper and other recyclable paper.

Plastics E.g. bottle(PET),plastic bag and mixed plastics.

Polystyrene

Metals E.g. recyclable aluminium,recyclable ferrous materials,non-recyclable metal and other metals.

Glass E.g. recyclable glass and non-recyclable waste. Organic waste E.g. cooked waste,uncooked waste and garden waste.

B) METHODOLOGY i). Sampling Method In this project we have been asked to collect the waste of 100 students in the university residence hall of the respective college we have been assigned to. In our class, we have been explained informally by Dr Zawawi Samba that an average student would produce about 1kg of waste per day, which makes it about a 100kg of wastes in which we actually have to collect, roughly. During the session, we have decided to do the following method to collect the wastes: 1. We divide ourselves into two groups of men and women, which consists of 2 and 4 person respectively. This was done as we have to collect the wastes from the male and female colleges, so the right gender has to be at the right place to perform the process.

2. Then we split up to collect the waste and trashes from the nearby blocks of the respective genders by going floor by floor collecting them from the main dustbin of each floor.

3. During this process we also took some pictures for evidence and to compile them together in our report.

4. The wastes are collected using a few plastic bags, in which we just randomly collected the wastes together in one plastic bag until its full before using another. This will ensure the lesser wastage of plastics used in the project.

5. We also took the plastic bags that are readily filled with wastes in our procedure. These however are not the wastes that the block cleaner already collects, which isn't allowed in this project. The categories are as follows: Plastic Bags Plastic Bottles Polysterene Mixed Plastics Non-recyclable plastic bag

Newspapers, magazines, cardboard and box (papers) Aluminium cans Rubber and leather Food waste (cooked) Food waste (uncooked) Glass Electronic waste including CD, PC Others

6. After that, we soon reunites to combine our collected wastes together at a suitable place to sort the wastes. The girls then starts to assemble the wastes before re-sorting

them according to their respective categories, while the boys went down to the Pusat Kitar Semula (PKS) which is very near to the college to borrow the weighing scale for us to weigh our wastes.

7. Soon the wastes are rightly sorted in their categories, and then we started to weigh them all. One of the girls are taking down the weight values, the other one took pictures from the scene, the other two are lending the boys a hand in weighing the wastes.

8. After we have finished the process, the wastes are executed into the nearby waste decomposers and we send some of it to the PKS for recycling but we did not ask for any pay as we did it for charity.

During the process, we find it quite hard to collect the wastes as we went to the college during the day, 9AM or so which alarms us that the block cleaners have already taken out the wastes sooner than we do. As a result, we only obtained a little amount of wastes than we actually have to collect. Nevertheless, we managed to collect some wastes from the most of the categories.

ii). Tools and Apparatus The needed apparatus for this project are as follows: A pair of plastic gloves for each members Face mask for each members Large bin plastic bags

 A weighing scale A large canvas A log book or a record sheet Camera

C)RESULTS

Waste Category Plastic bag Plastic bottle Polystyrene Mixed plastic Non-recyclable plastic bag Newspaper, magazines, cardboard and box (papers) Aluminium cans Rubber and leather Food waste(cooked) Food waste (uncooked) Glass Electronic waste including CD, PC Others

Weight (Kg) 2.30 1.50 1.00

Percentage (%) 18.25 11.90 7.94

2.00 0.50

15.87 3.97

3.20

25.40

0.70

5.56

1.40

11.11

D)ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION Analysis From the table,it can be seen that food waste(cooked) gives the most number that is 3.20 kg (25.40 %),followed by 2.30 kg(18.25%) for plastic bags on the second and on the third are the newspapers,magazines,cardboards (papers) that give 2.00 kg of weight (15.87 %).Plastic bottle was recorded 1.50 kg (11.90%),others 1.4 kg (11.11 %),polysterene 1.0 kg (7.94 %),glass 0.70 kg (5.56 %) and the last was aluminium cans 0.50 kg (3.97 %). The total weight of the waste was calculated as follow:

The average weight of waste produced by 100 students of the college:

Discussion 1. As the waste being weighted,our group cant make it to get average weight of waste produced by each student on 0.3 kg.It is because we collect the waste at the time after the cleaners done the daily cleaning. 2. Because of that,it takes some times to wait for the students to throw their waste again for the day.Otherwise,they may be some of the recyclable substance like aluminium can have been thrown in the recycle bin provided.This can effect our project because

we need to collect the waste from the bin that used by the students at the college especially at each floor. 3. For the waste that have been classified according to their own class,it is clearly shown that they use plastic bags for most of the time because,although the rubbish had been collected by the cleaner in the early of the morning,the weight of the plastic bags still the highest among all. 4. From this activity,we get to know that it is not easy to separate all waste according to its class.That is why government is so active to improve the recycle programme as it gives so many benefits not only to the environment but also to the money that being invested to process those waste produced daily by people. 5. Furthermore,we also can get to know that different class of waste should be treated differently because they need different kind of process for each class.For example,electronic waste should be treated differently from others since it contains dangerous substance like lead and cadmium.Aluminium can maybe can be recycle for other purpose and so on. 6. If people know about the importance to separate their waste according to specific category,we could have a land fill according to its used to treat specific class of waste which will reduced the pollution or we can treat the waste better as the studies of waste characterization is to know what is the new type of waste that may be produce by consumer and so that they can prepare a methodology or technologies to treat it.