Ingenieur Vol.82 April-June2020 | Page 9

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 7