MRF (material recovery facility)

Worldwide landfills sdn bhd (WLSB), the company that operated the first ever sanitary landfill (Ayer Hitam Sanitary Landfill in Puchong, 1995-2006) in our country had proposed to build a MRF (material recovery facility) at somewhere in Selangor.

http://www.whb.com.my/html/whbnews/30-31/worldwide_propose.pdf

It will be the first MRF in our country.

Generally, there are two types of MRF: dirty MRF and clean MRF.

Dirty MRF is designed for the mixed normal solid waste. While clean MRF is designed to handle the source-seperated / diverted "dry recyclables such as paper, plastic, glass, metal, etc.

In our country, where kerbside recyclable collection is not practiced; a dirty MRF is the only choice. (kerbside recyclable collection is the collection of separated dry recyclables by the waste collectors)

In my opinion, a dirty MRF in Malaysia is not a good suggestion. As our waste contains a majority of organic fraction (60-80%), the dirty MRF will suffers a reject rate.

Besides, as the high contain of biodegradable organic waste (food waste, yard waste, etc), our waste moisture contain is rather high (55-60%), Sivapalan K. et al. A high moisture content will hinder the MRF operation (leachate problem, etc). Besides, it cause odor and nuisance.

Furthermore, to recover recyclable from mixed waste is always not effective because of "contamination". Contamination by especially food waste cause the recyclable to lost it value (for example, a paper contaminated by food waste is difficult to be recycled.



Therefore, dirty MRF is not suitable in our country unless kerbside recyclable program is introduced, where the dry recyclables will be diverted either by single and dual commingled or kerbside sort collection. The dry recyclables will then be sent to a clean MRF instead, to be transformed physically (sort, shred, bale, compress, etc).

I believe it is not that difficult to introduce kerbside recyclable collection here, as we are actually practice it for the old newspaper collection. We just need to streamline the effort by include more recyclables such as plastic, metal, all kinds of paper and cardboard, and perhaps e-waste.

The efforts will depend on the local authorities or perhaps the federal government, as the solid waste management is now federalized under the flagship of JPSPN (Jabatan Pengurusan Sisa Pepejal Negara) or National Solid Waste Management Department and PPSPPA (Perbadanan Pengurusan Sisa Pepejal dan Pembersihan Awam).

As for the organic fraction, green technology is required, such as all kinds of composting approaches, anaerobic digestion, bioreactor landfill, biogas recovery, etc.

Various factors have to be weighed before a decision is made in any waste management system.

Collection should be the focus of the study as it deals with wide ranges of stakeholders with public participation usually as the prime factor. Therefore, socio-economic characteristic of an area covered is very important to be considered.

Back to the topic of MRF, I suggest kerbside recyclable collection to be established along with the build of a clean MRF. If not, it will be better to introduce a RDF resource recovery plant such as the one in Semenyih, Kajang, operated by Core Competencies sdn bhd; as the roles make no difference.














Official recyclable collection effort, especially the kerbside collection for residential area has to be introduced. As the 3 colored recycling bins was declared as a failure, recycling efforts have to be intensified so as to create a 3Rs driven society to reduce the solid waste to landfill.

As the recycling rate for MSW (municipal solid waste) currently stands at 5%, we have to buck up and strive toward an ISWM (Integrated Solid Waste Management) system in our country.

However, it is not easy to implement an ISWM system in a developing country like Malaysia.

To be cont'd...