What is municipal solid waste (MSW) ?

As according to Malaysia Environmental Quality Act 1974, "waste" is defined as any matter prescribed to be scheduled waste, or any matter whether in a solid, semisolid or liquid form, or in the form of gas or vapour which is emitted, discharged or deposited in the environment in such volume, composition or manner as to cause pollution.

Even so, what about the municipal solid waste (MSW)?

The MSW is also commonly known as urban solid waste.

It is the all type of waste that includes predominantly household waste (domestic waste), commercial waste, industrial wastes, clinical wastes, construction and demolishing (C&D) wastes, institutional wastes and many more.

MSW simply contain all kinds of garbage including newspapers, unwanted food, used tissue papers and just about anything you can think of that people throw away at home, schools, and any other place.

You name a place and there will be waste. None of us can escape from producing waste.

In short, MSW is the unwanted products derived by human activities.

After all, how about the management of Municipal Solid Waste in Malaysia?

My dear friends, where do you think all the garbage that we generated goes to?  Does such a question ever cross your mind? Or it is just a question that nobody cares about. Just ponder for a moment members of the floor.

According to National Solid Waste Management Department (JPSPN), about 90% of all our Malaysian municipal solid wastes are being disposed at the landfills. About 5% is burned and only 5% is recycled or reused. And of course, this is a sad case to talk about. On the other hand, other countries like Japan recycled and reused their wastes up to 30%.

You may asked, what is a landfill? A landfill is a special pit that has been dug in the ground to hold garbage. Once the pit is full, dirt is used to cover the trash. The landfill has been the common place where MSW will be kept for hundreds of years.

Just to site a few example of landfills that we have include Bukit Tagar landfill and Jeram landfill in Selangor State.

Besides landfills, biocomposting and incineration are the alternative ways to manage municipal solid waste.

And indeed, there are many issues and problems of MSW in Malaysia.

The municipal solid waste is one of the three major environmental problems in Malaysia. Currently, over 23,000 tonnes of waste is produced each day, I repeat ladies and gentlemen Each Day in Malaysia.

However, this amount is expected to rise to 30,000 tonnes per day by the year 2020. The amount of waste generated continues to increase due to the increasing population and development, and only less than 5% of our 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 problems of outdated and poor documentation of waste generation rates inefficient storage and collection systems, mixture of hazardous and non hazardous waste and illegal dumping of wastes.

Just to take one example, waste generated in Selangor for the 1997 was over 3000 tonne/day and the amount of waste is expected to rise up to 6000 tonne/day in the year 2017. A studied done by Muhd Noor Yunus in 2000.

And what is surprising was 19% of waste ends up in our beloved drains, which then causes flash floods and drainage blockage. This situation has been and will make us suffering from all kind of diseases and illness which eventually lead to reduce our environmental capacity to sustain life.

In short, reduce our creation of waste and recycle all of unwanted waste. And at times, our waste can also be valuable items when we manage it accordingly.

And as the saying goes, Waste not, Want not ~