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IWK Propagates Zero Waste Management For Sewerage Services In Malaysia
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Indah Water General Manager for Planning and Engineering, Ir. Hj. Mohamed Haniffa Hj. Abdul Hamid |
KUALA LUMPUR, 11 April (Bernama) -- A growing number of towns and cities around the world are today adopting the Zero Waste management concept.
Increasingly, communities are moving from managing wastes to eliminating them altogether.
But what does Zero Waste really mean?
The concept is based on the premise that in nature, everything has its purpose. A waste to one species is food or resource to another. Nothing goes to waste.
Waste is created by humans and in the long term, results in dire consequences for both humans and the environment.
Zero Waste is aimed at creating a resource efficient society, where everything is recycled or made reusable either for the community or nature.
Waste then ceases to exist because everything becomes a resource.
SEWAGE TREATED UNDER THE SAME CONCEPT
The same concept can be used in treating sewage.
"In domestic sewage treatment, once wastewater reaches the sewage treatment plant (STP), sewage undergoes various physical and biochemical processes that convert the sewage into environmentally acceptable end products," Indah Water General Manager for Planning and Engineering, Ir. Hj. Mohamed Haniffa Hj. Abdul Hamid explained.
"Wastes handled by an STP are converted to three different forms i.e. treated effluent, bio-solids and bio-gas.
"Research initiatives to ascertain how these can be effectively reused have been carried out by local universities in collaboration with IWK," he added.
In a paper titled Towards Zero Waste Management - An Overview of The Possibility for the Domestic Sewage Treatment in Malaysia, tabled at the Asiawater Expo 2008 held at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre recently, Haniffa postulated the opportunities in the 3R concept, which is vigorously propagated by various government agencies and NGOs.
The 3R concept is to reduce, reuse and recycle waste by-products from sewage treatment processes.
WASTE BY-PRODUCTS REUSEABLE
A public survey conducted in tandem with the research indicated that the industrial sector is highly receptive to the idea of using processed wastewater as opposed to precious tap water, in their operations where applicable, and for landscape irrigation.
Bio-solids, which are rich in nutrient and organic material, can be applied as fertiliser for gardens, parks as well as to reclaim mining sites.
In some developed countries, biogas, through the use of biosolids digester, is used to generate heat and electricity.
Since STPs in Malaysia are generally small, they do not generate bio-gas in sufficient quantities to be used for commercial purposes.
Nevertheless, the government has constructed a pilot power generation plant at a new STP in Jelutong, Penang. The plant, set up to study the potential of using bio-gas to generate power, will be equipped with bio-solids digester. Haniffa revealed that the path towards Zero Waste management in sewage treatment still has a long way to go. Among the factors that need to be looked into before this vision can be realised are:
- The formulation of national guidelines and standards to promote the reuse of treated sewage by-products.
- Educating the public on the importance of protecting the environment, to promote public acceptance towards the reuse of processed by-products.
- Incentives and subsidies to make the reuse of sewage treatment by-products more viable.
- Government support for wastewater management utilities to promote and realise initiatives that require substantial monetary investments.
- Balanced priority setting to support these initiatives, where more pressing concerns such as improvements in healthcare, education and development of infrastructure warrant a higher priority.
ATTITUDE TOWARDS WATER MUST CHANGE
"Water is a valuable resource. The flush and forget water system will eventually become too costly for many water-deprived cities in the world," Haniffa elaborated.
"Inevitably, consumers will have to make choices about products and lifestyles that abuse water," he noted.
Earth Day 2007 has sent the
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