How much is the total waste generation in
Malaysia? There is no absolute answer because
there is no regular update of waste generation
data in Malaysia. Many disposal sites are not even
equipped with a weighbridge for proper data
recording, and many of the waste collected are
diverted from disposal sites for various purposes
such as recycling. However, data provided by
Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management
Corporation (SW Corp) shows that the estimated
total waste generation in 2018 was about 37,890
tons/day, equivalent to 13,829,850 tons/year. This
derives to per capita generation rate of about 1.17
kg/capita/day. All these data were just estimation
because there is no official data captured on actual
waste generation in Malaysia.
Waste-to-Wealth – A Truly Misleading
Concept
We often hear about the concept of Waste-to-
Wealth (WtW) even officially from the Ministry or
local Governments telling people that waste is
actually making money. Therefore, be wise not
to simply throw away your waste, but to recycle
it if possible. The Minister of Housing and Local
Government once said that the Government is
planning for a Waste-to-Energy (WtE) facility in
the long run because it is able to turn waste into
wealth.
It would be interesting to ask, “If waste is
making money or wealth, how much money has
the Government made out of waste management?
Which country in the world has made waste
management their main source of income if it
is making wealth? The answer is none. Waste
management remains as a big cost for all
countries, regardless if they are a developed or
developing country. The Malaysian Government
revealed that more than RM2 billion was spent
yearly for overall waste management, and the
costs are expected to increase year by year. The
yearly expenditures of some local authorities on
waste management are shown in Table 1. The
costs spent on waste management accounted for
20% to as high as 80% of the total revenue of the
local authorities in Malaysia. It is a big burden for
smaller local authorities that have low revenue
(see Table 1).
Then, where does the WtW concept comes into
picture? When a private company is proposing to
construct a WtE plant for the Government, it only
makes business sense for the company if the
project is profit-making and thus making “wealth”
out of “waste”. However, bear in mind that in most
cases, the Government has to award a long-term
concessionaire period to the company, pay tipping
fees as required, and possibly also a certain rate
of feed-in-tariff (FIT) for energy produced from the
WtE plant to ensure that it is a profitable project.
All these are direct costs to the Government
instead of making any wealth. Therefore, WtW is
truly a misleading concept from the Government’s
perspective. Only waste management companies
are making profits out of the projects, and it also
does not yield any single cent to the public in
general. Worst still, if the public has to bear the
cost of the project, which makes wealth only to the
private companies.
From a different angle, when we segregate
and sell our recyclables to the recyclers or buy
back from centres such as old newspapers, we
receive some incentives and thus, it is making
some “wealth”. If we analyse the waste type in
more detail, we will realise that only limited types
of waste carry positive value. In other words,
there are many types of wastes that are unable
to generate income but need costs for proper
treatment or disposal (see Table 2).
Promoting WtW in a way is poisoning the
people’s mindset because it focuses on monetary
Table 1
Year Municipal Council Expenditure on Waste Management
2020 Pulau Pinang Municipal Council (MPPP) RM71 million
2019 Subang Jaya Municipal Council (MPSJ) RM75 million
2018 Kajang Municipal Council (MPKj) RM33 million
2019 Taiping Municipal Council (MPT) RM5.5 million
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