TOPIC 14

URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL
ISSUES
 URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
1. SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
2. WATER AND WASTEWATER
3. AIR POLLUTION
4. RENEWABLE ENERGY
5. ENERGY EFFICIENCY

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SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

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 SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

• SOLID WASTE (SW) DEFINITION

• "Solid waste" includes
A. Any scrap material or other unwanted surplus substance or
rejected products srising from the application of any process
• B. Any substance required to be disposed of as being broken,
worn out, contaminated or otherwise spoiled; or
• C. Any other material that according to this Act or any other
written law is required by the authority to be disposed of , but
does not include scheduled wastes as prescribed under the
Environmental Quality Act 1974 (Act 127), sewage as defined in
the Water Services Industry Act 2006 (Act 655) or radioactive
waste as defined in the Atomic Energy Licensing Act 1984 (Act
304).
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 SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

• Waste Management Policies and Programmes

• In general, municipal solid waste management is
handled by several government agencies from the
federal to state and to local authorities.
• There are four private consortia: Urban Solid Waste
Management; Government- Funded Public information
campaigns; Action Plan for a Beautiful and Clean
Malaysia; and Recycling campaigns. The Action Plan for
a Beautiful and Clean Malaysia (ABC) has been a
guideline and procedures in implementing solid waste
management programme in Malaysia .

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 SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

• Waste Management Technology

• Compost is organic matter that has
been decomposed and recycled as
a fertilizer and soil amendment. Compost is a key
ingredient in organic farming.
• Incineration is a waste treatment process that
involves the combustion of organic substances
contained in waste materials. Incineration and
other high-temperature waste treatment systems
are described as "thermal treatment".
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• A landfill site (also known as
a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage
dump or dumping ground and historically as
a midden) is a site for the disposal
of waste materials by burial and is the oldest
form of waste treatment (although the burial
part is modern; historically, refuse was just left
in piles or thrown into pits).

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• Recycling is the process of
converting waste materials into new materials
and objects. It is an alternative to
"conventional" waste disposal that can save
material and help lower greenhouse
gas emissions (compared to plastic
production).

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• In agriculture, windrow composting is the
production of compost by piling organic
matter or biodegradable waste, such as
animal manure and crop residues, in long
rows (windrows). This method is suited to
producing large volumes of compost.

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 SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
• Current Practices for Malaysia
• Construction Waste Management
• Rapid growth in the construction industry as a result from the
expansion of the standards of living, demands of infrastructure
projects, changes in consumption habits, as well as the increasing of
population has significantly contributes to waste generation.
• Construction wastes are in the form of building debris, rubble,
earth, concrete, steel, timber and mixed site clearance materials,
arising from various construction activities .
• The construction wastes can be hazardous, for example, asbestos in
which it generated during demolition of existing structures.
• Hence, a proper and well defined policy and technologies used in
managing wastes produces from the construction activates is
required to reduce the adverse effect that may be arised on
environment, social, and economy aspects.

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 SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

• A. Construction Waste Management Policy

• Construction wastes constitutes a large portion of
municipal wastes, hence, it is appropriate to have a
better policy in dealing with the construction wastes in
order to have pollution free environment.
• In response, Malaysia Government has developed an
agency namely, Construction Industry Development
Board (CIDB) to transform the industry by improving its
environmental performance [10]. CIDB has produce a
Construction Industry Master Plan to further enhance
the construction key players in the awareness of
sustainability.

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 SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

• Malaysia government has established Standard Specifications for

Building works (SBW) which is governed by Ministry of Works, while
Pembinaan Malaysia Act 1994 (PMA) is governed by CIDB as well .
• The aim for SBW is to ensure the garbage and construction
clearance to be done twice a week and will send in to landfill whilst
• PMA is to prevent and reduce the pollution caused by construction
waste.
• All of the policies and acts that established by government bodies
shows that the desires in handling the construction waste in a
proper way. However, not all the policies implemented is followed
by construction practitioners and a more holistic policy is needed to
ensure economic, social, and environment aspects can be
protected.

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 SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT
• B. Waste Management Technologies
• The most environmentally sound criteria for a waste management
hierarchy should start from waste minimization, waste re-use,
recycling, and lastly composting.
• As a result, industry key players have slowly started to see the
importance of the adoption of waste minimization technique in
construction industry .
• Waste minimization include source reduction which is eliminates
the generation of waste at source and recycling which stand for
recovery ot reuse a waste material .
• Malaysia is moving towards the adoption of Industrial Building
system (IBS) which it is said to be able to control the waste
generation during the construction activities and it is environmental
friendly . IBS is define as a construction system that built using pre-
fabricated component .

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WATER AND WASTE WATER

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 WATER AND WASTE WATER
• Wastewater, also written as waste water, is any water
that has been adversely affected in quality by
anthropogenic influence.
• Municipal wastewater is usually conveyed in a
combined sewer or sanitary sewer, and treated at a
wastewater treatment plant. Treated wastewater is
discharged into receiving water via an effluent sewer.
• Wastewaters generated in areas without access to
centralized sewer systems rely on on-site wastewater
systems. These typically comprise a septic tank, drain
field , and optionally an on-site treatment unit.

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 WATER AND WASTE WATER
• Sewage is the subset of wastewater that is contaminated
with fecet or urine, but is often used to mean any
wastewater.
• Sewage includes domestic, municipal, or industrial liquid
waste products disposed of, usually via a pipe or sewer
(sanitary or combined), sometimes in a cesspool emptier.
• Sewerage is the physical infrastructure, including pipes,
pumps, screens, channels etc. used to convey sewage from
its origin to the point of eventual treatment or disposal. It is
found in all types of sewage treatment, with the exception
of septic systems, which treat sewage on site.

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AIR POLLUTION

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 AIR POLLUTION
• Economic growth and high demands of commodities have
led to many manufacturing and processing industries
emerging in the Klang Valley over the years.
• Eventually, these high production rates have led to higher
emissions of air pollutants even though different industries
emit different pollutants.
• However, according to the report by ADB and CAI-Asia, the
major industries in the country affecting air quality are the
iron and steel industry, nonferrous metal industry, non-
metallic (mineral) industry, oil and gas industry,
petrochemical industry, pulp and paper, power plants and
waste incineration sector (ADB and CAI-Asia .

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 AIR POLLUTION
• Even though some suggested the forest fires in
neighbouring countries contribute to the high
concentration of air pollutants (unhealthy level) in the
Malaysian cities , the factor of weather cannot be
ignored since it has a significant effect on the air
quality in the Klang Valley.
• Trans boundary emissions, such as fine particulate
matter from forest fires during the dry seasons from
neighbouring countries, such as Indonesia, has affected
the air quality in Malaysia, which resulted in an episode
of severe haze in 1997 .

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RENEWABLE ENERGY (RE)

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 RENEWABLE ENERGY (RE)
• Rapid depletion of fossil fuel reserves as well as
climate change has driven the world towards RE
sources which are abundant, untapped, and
environmentally friendly.
• RE was added as the fifth source of energy when
the Five-Fuel Diversification Policy replaced the
four-fuel policy back in 1999 with the target to
contribute 5% of the total energy mix by 2010 in
the eight Malaysia Plan (2001-2005).
• The development pace of RE in Malaysia is rather
slow and still at its infancy.

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 RENEWABLE ENERGY (RE)
• Hydro
• Though hydro power is one kind of RE, it is
placed separately in the energy mix as hydro
power is expected to play a more prominent
role in the generation mix.
• It is expected that its share will increase from
5% in 2008 to 35% in 2030 for Peninsular
Malaysia.

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 RENEWABLE ENERGY (RE)
• The state government of Sarawak has recently
announced plans to develop several large hydroelectric
projects under the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable
Energy.
• The development spanning over a period of 22 years
has the potential to generate 28,000 MW of electricity
once fully developed.
• Amongst the projects which are already identified to
be developed are the Murum dam (940 MW), Baleh
dam (950 MW) and Pelagus dam (770 MW) in the
upper reaches of the Rejang river in Sarawak

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 RENEWABLE ENERGY (RE)
• Solar
• Most of the solar power used in Malaysia is domestic
level only and large scale commercial use is not
significant yet.
• Solar power in Malaysia or also known as photovoltaic
(PV) system is estimated to be four times the world fossil
fuel resources.
• In 2005, the 5-year Malaysian Building Integrated
Photovoltaic Technology Application Project (MBIPV) was
launched.
• This project is jointly funded by the Government of
Malaysia, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the
private sector.
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 RENEWABLE ENERGY (RE)
• The project has several demonstration PV projects in
various sectors including residential houses and
commercial building.
• The most significant recent project is the Green Energy
Office (GEO) building, an administration-cum-research
office for PTM.
• Another national MBIPV program that is SURIA-1000
program initiated in 2007, targeting the residential and
commercial sector to establish the new BIPV market
and provide direct opportunities to the public and
industry in RE initiatives.

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 RENEWABLE ENERGY (RE)
• Wind
• In Malaysia, wind energy conversion is a serious
consideration. In present technology, wind
energy in Malaysia is not suitable to generate
electricity commercially or wind is not
particularly good in Malaysia as compared to the
UK or Denmark, but islands like Perhentian can
definitely gain a lot of power especially when
wind turbine is jointly equipped with solar
panels–which Malaysia is rich in.

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 RENEWABLE ENERGY (RE)
• In the day, when there will be less wind, the solar
panels will cover the extra load and at night, the wind
turbines will be the ones generating more power.
• A more recent research in 2005, a 150 kW wind turbine
in Terumbu Layang-Layang was demonstrated with
some success by a team from UKM.
• However, the availability of wind resource varies with
location.
• The station located at Mersing (seaside) has the
greatest potential with a mean power density of 85.61
W/m2 at 10 m above sea level (Sopian et al., 1995). 3.4

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 RENEWABLE ENERGY (RE)
• Hydrogen fuel cells
• Being the most abundant element on earth, hydrogen (H2) has
been identified as one of the most viable and long term renewable
alternatives to fossil fuel after solar.
• The fuel cell is an electrochemical cell, which produces electricity
directly from hydrogen and air (oxygen), without the production of
GHG.
• In principle, although a fuel cell operates like a normal battery, it
does not run out nor requires charging as long as fuel is supplied to
it.
• At the moment, research and development is being carried out to
harness hydrogen to be used in fuel cells for transportation
purposes. Hydrogen and fuel cells are identified as priority research
by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) after
solar,

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ENERGY EFFICIENCY
(EE)

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 ENERGY EFFICIENCY
• Energy efficiency (EE)
• EE is a way of managing and restraining the
growth in energy consumption. Something is
more energy efficient if it delivers more services
for the same energy input, or the same services
for less energy input.
• For example, when a compact florescent light
(CFL) bulb uses less energy (one-third to one-
fifth) than an incandescent bulb to produce the
same amount of light, the CFL is considered to be
more energy efficient.

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 ENERGY EFFICIENCY
• Energy efficiency is about achieving 'more with less'
by utilizing the energy we use, to meet our needs
and avoid energy waste, to achieve the same or
greater results for our homes and businesses.
• Energy efficiency is getting the most from the energy.
• Whether we are heating, cooling or lighting our
homes and offices, or manufacturing and
transporting goods and materials, energy use can be
optimized through improving our energy efficiency.

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 ENERGY EFFICIENCY
• Why be energy efficient?

• Energy efficiency saves money, protects the environment,

enhances industry productivity and competitiveness, and
contributes to energy reliability and security.
• Increased energy efficiency in homes, businesses and industry
can provide financial benefits through reducing electricity bills
and lowering greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants,
thereby improving our environment.
• By investing in energy efficiency practices and products, the
government, industry, business and households will benefit
financially, socially and environmentally.

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 ENERGY EFFICIENCY
• Reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions and
saving money are not the only benefits of
business energy efficiency.
• Rewards also include improved corporate
citizenship, better community and customer
relations, increased staff productivity and product
output, reduced maintenance costs and improved
workplace health and safety.
• Improvements in energy efficiency also
contribute to the competitiveness of industry and
assist in better managing energy demand.

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 ENERGY EFFICIENCY
• Saving energy
• Saving energy and reducing your energy
consumption can reduce your electricity bill,
saving you money and the production of
greenhouse gas emissions and other
pollutants, thereby improving our
environment.

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 ENERGY EFFICIENCY
• Building Design
• Energy efficiency can be achieved in a variety of ways. One way is to
update or design new buildings to take advantage of natural
resources and minimize energy waste.
• Situating a building with large windows facing south towards
deciduous shade trees is an example of using passive heating and
cooling to reduce energy use.
• In winter, the sun shines into the house through the windows,
reducing the need to use electric or gas-fed heat, and the trees
provide shade in the summer, preventing the sun from warming the
house. Other building design practices that achieve energy
efficiency include proper insulation, using double pane windows,
and maximizing green space to decrease heat absorption.

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 ENERGY EFFICIENCY
• Industrial
• Another way to increase energy efficiency is to reduce
or reuse the waste heat that is typically produced from
manufacturing processes.
• About 30% of energy use in all industries is lost due to
transportation and equipment inefficiencies.
• Researching new technologies to capture the waste
heat and chemical energy and turn it into electricity or
other usable forms of energy could offset petroleum
demand and provide cheaper, cleaner electricity to
industries.

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 ENERGY EFFICIENCY
• Transportation
• Improving fuel economy in vehicles increases
energy efficiency because it reduces the need for
a finite energy source without compromising the
function of the vehicle.
• With current technology, only about 15% of the
fuel used in vehicles actually serves to move the
vehicle, or for other useful features such as air
conditioning.
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 ENERGY EFFICIENCY
• The remaining 85% of fuel energy is lost to idling and
mechanical inefficiencies. Internal combustion engines
are very inefficient at converting the fuel’s chemical
energy to mechanical energy, losing 62% of the fuel’s
energy to engine friction, pumping air into and out of
the engine, and wasted heat.
• A combination of engine and exterior redesign for
commercial vehicles could save both consumers and
producers money in fuel savings.

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THANK YOU

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