E Waste Management Processes In Malaysia Environmental Sciences Essay

With rapid technological advancement, increasing demand of electrical and electronic as well as short lifespan of the products has lead to the increase in e-waste generation. Hence, E-waste generation has become a concern. E-waste management requires different approach compare to conventional management of traditional wastes. This is because of E-waste complex characteristic where it’s contain hazardous substances which pose risk to human health and environment. Understanding E-waste management and to determine the best approach is a difficult task due to lack of study in Malaysia and reliable data on management system. This paper aimed to assess the current practice of E-waste management in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia. The data presented in this paper derived mostly from the secondary sources of various literatures and interview with main stakeholders in e-waste management were conducted in order to understand the current issue and problem in e-waste management. Managing E-waste in Malaysia is challenging due to its hazardous characteristic and the generation currently at an alarming rate where it is reported that E-waste will be expected to triple output in next five years. Therefore, the cooperation from all level of management from key stakeholders is needed in order to ensure the risk of E-waste can be control at the minimum level.

Keywords: Electrical and electronic waste, E-waste, management

Introduction

In view of the vision 2020 aim for Malaysia, the country’s wish to become a fully develop nation in the year 2020 has meant that Malaysia is not only encourages economic and social growth, but also environmental issues are addressed (Pelle Getke, 2008). One of the major environmental problems in Malaysia is the production of new waste in the waste streams namely electrical and electronic waste.

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Electrical and electronic waste, also known as electronic waste or electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), or in short called e-waste is consist of electrical or electronic products that can be categorized into white goods or bulky waste such as refrigerators, washing machines and brown goods such as computers, televisions, mobile phones, etc when comes to its end of life for their current owner (D.S Khetriwal, 2007). It also can be define as waste types that consist of broken or unwanted electronic appliances.

E-waste is one of the fastest growing waste issues in the world where it forms 1% of solid waste on an average in developed countries and is expected to grow to 2% by 2020 (UNEP, 2007). The quantities of e-waste are predicted to grow substantially in future both in industrialized countries and in developing countries, with the potential to triple their e-waste by 2010 (UNEP, 2008) which is no exemption for Malaysia. With manufacturers continue to update and invented new electrical and electronic equipments, this has caused the lifespan of old product tend to decrease and this also becoming one of the factor contributes to the rapid growing of waste in today world. Statistics on the total quantity of e-waste generated per year in Malaysia is indistinguishable. However, e-waste generation is directly related to number of appliances used in the country (IMPAK, 2006). Table 1 shows the amount in unit on electrical and electronic product in Malaysia for year 2003.

Table 1: The amount of electrical and electronic product for year 2003

Product

Amount (Unit)

Computer

4, 183,684

Mobile Phones

11,124,000

Television

4.500,000

Radio

9,400,000

Refrigerator

3,500,000

Data source: Era Hijau, 2008, Department of Environment

With the growth of electrical or electronic equipments consumed in this country, the management of waste will be a key issue that needs to be urgently addressed especially in e-waste management. The problems that can be identified are the absence of proper mechanism and standards of disposal where it often end up in the waste streams either through recycling or landfill (ToxicLink, 2003). It can be assumed that the disposal of obsolete electrical and electronic products is fundamentally driven by the production of new ones where it implies that the growth in global electronic production of 4.4% in 2002, 6.8% in 2003 will result in similar growth in e-waste management (William, 2005). Without proper management system especially in disposal processes, hazardous materials contained in e-waste can be release into the environment and this will potentially give adverse effect to human health (M. Macauley, 2003). Therefore, it is very important to have a better e-waste management in order to reduce it effects to both human health and environmental ecosystem in the future.

Current status of E-waste management in Malaysia

Developing countries usually lack of proper storage spaces or disposal area for e-waste causing their e-waste mixed in domestic landfill, burned with household waste or stored in the attic for years. This problem also occur in Malaysia where most of e-waste end up in landfill as there is no mechanism of proper recycling or safe disposal. The disposal of e-waste in uncontrolled way can pose risk to environment and human health where there are growing of e-waste winding up unnoticed in landfill (NST, 2007). Besides that, many facilities are unable to process e-waste due to constraints in space and handling problem (EQR, 2006). The existing collection and disposal system is inadequate in handling such wastes. This is because the management of e-waste is different with management of solid waste. According to D.S Khetriwal (2007), conventional waste management policies suited to handle traditional waste types and cannot be applied in the case of e-waste due to its characteristic which contains both highly toxic substances as well as valuable materials which can be recovered.

Malaysia already has existing regulation on scheduled wastes where e-waste were categorized under SW110 in First Scheduled of Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulation 2005, but this regulation not directly dealing with e-waste from household. Currently, there is no mechanism of proper segregation or disposal system to encourage public recycle and discard e-waste. The continue generation of e-waste over time, together with lack of structured mechanism of institutional framework and inadequate infrastructure causing e-waste management not well set up. Even though at present electrical or electronic appliances are rarely disposed of inadequate manner, but with little regulation in place, this has created hazards to local populations, as well as to the environment.

Study area and data collection

The number of electrical or electronic industries in Malaysia is rising. Thus, increased in the consumption of electrical and electronic products is due to its utility in our everyday life. This indirectly explained why the numbers of electrical and electronic waste is increasing. As the urbanization continues to take place, the management of waste is a major public health and environment concern in urban areas of many developing countries. The concern is serious, particularly in the capital cities.

Therefore Shah Alam, Selangor is chosen as the starting point for the research. Shah Alam is the capital city for the State of Selangor where it consists of well planned and modern town with the state administrative centre in a spacious and pleasant environment. Shah Alam is an urban city in Petaling and Klang District which is located about 25 kilometres (15 miles) west of the country’s capital, Kuala Lumpur. In 1978, it replaced Kuala Lumpur as the capital city of the State of Selangor due to Kuala Lumpur’s incorporation into a Federal Territory in 1974. Shah Alam was the first planned city in Malaysia after independence in 1957. Shah Alam has a similar urban layout to Petaling Jaya and Subang Jaya with housing areas occupying most of the city (55.2 km²) and commercial centres scattered around the different ‘seksyen’ (sections). There are about 56 sections in total within 24 zones.

Shah Alam is the State of Selangor capital city, has experienced a rapid urbanization and industrialization in the last decade. Urban area where chosen because of the highest communication services are concentrated in urban areas compare to rural areas and most of the development still concentrated in urban areas. The production of E-waste in this area can be assumed as quite high and the management of E-waste by waste generators, recyclers and disposal are crucial. Figure 3.2 shows amount of E-waste generated in Shah Alam is the highest compare to others area in the State of Selangor.

Figure 3.2 Amount of e-waste generated in Selangor Area in 2009

Source: DOE Shah Alam report, 2009

Personal interview were conducted with relevant stakeholder that consist of regulatory framework government officials responsible for E-waste management process, as well as senior managers within the E-waste recycling industries (SW. Chung, R.Murakami-Suzuki, 2008) in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia. As this is exploratory research, many stakeholders have been approached and interviews were conducted to obtain the understanding on e-waste management issues and problem, opinions and their view. Before meeting the respondents, information has been searched for knowing the involvement of stakeholders in the e-waste management (M. Schluep et al., 2008). The interviews were conducted with stakeholders that were responsible with the management of e-waste in Shah Alam and also directly involved in e-waste management in Malaysia. On the other hand, the respondent were chosen based on convenience sampling where only person that willing to cooperate in this study will be interviewed. This type of sampling technique was chosen due to limited time and finance. After the interview, the interviews are transcribed and the transcript of each interview was sent back to the interviewee (s) for comment and further questions (P. Manomaivibool, 2009). Secondary data was extracted from a collection of key documents. These documents were collected through library and document searches from many stakeholders including government agencies, industry and business. Collections of key documents consist of documents in the form of publications such as reports, journals, books, and internets. The data gathers are source from report of e-waste inventory project in Malaysia, annual publication of IMPAK magazine by Department of Environment (DOE), Malaysia and environmental quality report of DOE, Malaysia.

The data presented in this paper derived mostly from the secondary sources of various literatures and interview with main stakeholders in e-waste management were conducted in order to understand the current issue and problem in e-waste management in Shah Alam, Selangor and Malaysia generally.

Trend of e-waste generation

Figure 1: Quantities of e-waste generated in Selangor, Malaysia

Table 1: Number of e-waste contractors in Selangor, Malaysia.

2007

2008

2009

Number of contractor in Selangor

27

28

27

Data source: DOE, Selangor report, 2007, 2008, and 2009.

In the e-waste inventory project of Malaysia report, e-waste is expected to increase in five year ahead and further. This is because at that time the level of public awareness regarding e-waste is increasing due to e-waste had become an important environment issues in 21st century. The other factor that may contribute to the increase of e-waste is due to technologies advancement where people lifestyle change where the replacement of old product with new ones that much better, affordable and easy to use in the future. Even nowadays people are depending on gadgets such as computers and mobile phones in communicating with people around the world. This data only reflects the e-waste that is collected as disassembled components from industries (Malaysia Inventory Report, Accessed on 11/10/2009).

Data on quantities of e-waste generated in Shah Alam were gathered from inventory recorded by e-waste contractors for Department of Environment, Selangor using a consignment notes. The increase of e-waste quantities generated give impact to the management of e-waste. The main objective in e-waste management is to reduce the e-waste generated from ending up in landfill site and to reduce the cost of managing e-waste where it contain both highly toxic substances and valuable materials.

In 2005, Malaysia has issue e-waste as an environmental concern and marked it as new category of scheduled wastes. Before Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulation 2005, there are no regulations for e-waste but in Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulation 1986, the discarded batteries containing lead, mercury, nickel or lithium from battery manufacturing plants are coded under scheduled waste S271. However, E-waste is defined as ‘used’ electrical and electronic equipments categories as scheduled waste in First Schedule of Environment (Scheduled Wastes) Regulation 2005 and been coded as SW110 after takes effect on 15 August 2005.

When e-waste become new category of scheduled waste in Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulation 2005, contractors in Selangor that involved in e-waste recycling and processing are bound to obtain license from Department of Environment, Selangor. With the enforcement of EQSWR 2005, the activity of e-waste inventory were carrying out by DOE, Selangor began in 2007. The number of e-waste contractor’s license under DOE is about 27 contractors in 2007 and 28 contractors in 2008 but reduce back to 27 contractors in 2009.

There are two factors contribute to this reduction; firstly because of economy crisis in 2008 and effected e-waste generated in 2009. This has show in the graph where the amount of e-waste generated in 2008 decrease from 10916 MT/year to 10369 MT/year in 2009. From the literatures sources, when the economic crisis happens, firstly affected is the electronic industry. As a result, the production of electronic product decreasing as well as the quantities of e-waste generated. And secondly because of competition between these contractors result in some of them become passive and some are active. Moreover too many players but the volume e-waste collected is not enough and the high costs for e-waste become a burden to these e-waste contractors. Also according DOE Shah Alam officer, they do not have any data or quantity for each e-waste generated. For this time being, the only data exist is for the whole of SW110 wastes.

Figure 1: Quantities of e-waste generated in Shah Alam, Selangor

Table 2: Amount of e-waste (MT/year) generates and number of e-waste contractor in Shah Alam, Selangor.

2007

2008

2009

Number of contractor in Shah Alam

9

10

12

Data Data source: DOE, Selangor report, 2007, 2008, and 2009.

E-waste generation is different with other hazardous household waste and scheduled waste generated by industries and business sources. The generation is not regular. It’s depending on how the individual handle they product during the equipment working lifespan. There are no reports on types of e-waste generated from household as this waste end up mixed with other waste goes to landfill or informally handle by illegal collectors or scrap collectors.

Malaysia has issue e-waste as an environmental concern and marked it as new category of scheduled wastes in 2005. Before Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulation 2005 takes effect, there are no regulations for e-waste. However in the Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulation 1986, the discarded batteries containing lead, mercury, nickel or lithium from battery manufacturing plants are coded under scheduled waste S271 [12]. However, E-waste is defined as ‘used’ electrical and electronic equipments categories as scheduled waste in First Schedule of Environment (Scheduled Wastes) Regulation 2005 and been coded as SW110 after takes effect on 15 August 2005. When e-waste become new category of scheduled waste in Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulation 2005, contractors in Selangor that wanted to involved in e-waste recycling and processing are bound to obtain license from Department of Environment, Selangor. With the enforcement of EQSWR 2005, the activity of e-waste inventory were carrying out by DOE, Selangor began in 2007.

Figure 1 show that the amount of e-waste generated in Shah Alam is increasing from 5331 MT/year in 2007 to 5388 MT/year in 2009. Amount of e-waste collected by e-waste contractors in Shah Alam is assumed to be all or major portion of e-waste generated in Shah Alam eventually goes to the nearby recyclers and or disposal facilities. However, the generation of e-waste depends on the consumption and production of electrical or electronic product in that year. Currently, the number of e-waste contractors in Shah Alam was increase from only 9 contractors in 2007 to 12 contractors in 2009 as showed in Table 2 where it consist of one full recovery facility and other is partial recovery facilities. However, there are still unknown and unlicensed contractors in Shah Alam operating e-waste collection, recycling and processing. One of the identify company is Scrap Computer Trading Sdn Bhd that located in Shah Alam area. The increase quantities of e-waste each years and without proper management system especially during disposal process, the hazardous materials contain can release into the environment will potentially give adverse effect to human health [15].

In the e-waste inventory project of Malaysia report, e-waste is expected to increase in five year ahead and further. This is because at that time the level of public awareness regarding e-waste is increasing due to e-waste had become an important environment issues in 21st century. The other factor that may contribute to the increase of e-waste is due to technologies advancement where people lifestyle change where the replacement of old product with new ones that much better, affordable and easy to use in the future. Even nowadays people are depending on gadgets such as computers and mobile phones in communicating with people around the world. This data only reflects the e-waste that is collected as disassembled components from industries (Malaysia Inventory Report, Accessed on 11/10/2009).

Data on quantities of e-waste generated in Shah Alam were gathered through inventory recorded by e-waste contractors for Department of Environment, Selangor using a consignment notes. The increase of e-waste quantities generated give impact to the management of e-waste. The main objective in e-waste management is to reduce the e-waste generated from ending up in landfill site and to reduce the cost of managing e-waste where it contain both highly toxic substances and valuable materials.

Current Status on E-waste management in Shah Alam, Selangor

Shah Alam is one of well planned city; the residential areas were located on the site of federal highway and industrial zone on the other. Table 3 shows the e-waste generators, type of e-waste collected by e-waste collectors in Shah Alam, Selangor. Generators in Shah Alam consist of electrical and electronic manufacturers, assemblers, individual consumers, government organizations, corporate users such as banking sectors, etc.

Table 3: E-waste generators, type of e-wastes and e-waste collectors in Shah Alam, Selangor.

E-waste generators

Type of E-waste

E-waste collector

Manufacturing Industries

Disassemblies such as metal scrap, ICT board, rejected wires, etc

License e-waste contractor under Department of Environment

Government organization, institution

Whole unit of e-wastes such as computers, telephone, printers, etc

Alam Flora Sdn Bhd;

License e-waste contractor under Department of Environment

Individual households, publics

Sub-unit of e-waste or whole unit of e-waste

Shah Alam City Council (MBSA)

Types of e-waste generated depend on type of generator and each quantity generated or collected are different from each other. E-waste generate from multinational electrical and electronic manufacturing industries such as Panasonic Sdn Bhd, JVC (M) Sdn Bhd and larger business such as banking sectors, ICT sectors, etc are well collected by licensed contractors. However e-waste generated by individual household uncommonly collected because of quantities of e-waste produce is in small amount. This is because individual households not are regular generator for e-waste compare to business. According to Macauley et al 2003, generally electronics wastes generated by businesses more homogeneous which are comprise of large quantities than electrical waste generated by households [13].

Consignment

Notes

(Inventory

Track

System)

Sell to other recyclers or local/domestic market

Partial Recovery Facilities

Licence Collector

Generator

Kualiti Alam Sdn Bhd

Full recovery facilities

Disposal of e-waste residue

Treatment

Alam Flora Sdn Bhd, Local Authority

Collect from the public

Recyclable materials such as metals scraps and plastic scraps

Unlicensed collector

Unknown

2nd raw materials

Sell to the manufacturers

Figure 2: E-waste management in Shah Alam, Selangor

E-waste management practice in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

E-waste collection

E-waste management in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia is summarized in Figure 2 above from the waste generation until the disposal of the waste. E-waste derived from manufacturers usually consists of disassembled components such as plastic scraps, metal parts and wires which are collected mostly by license e-waste contractors.

E-waste generate from domestic area were collected by waste concessionaires such as Alam Flora Sdn Bhd, Solid Waste Management Sdn Bhd. According to Alam Flora officer, they have launched a campaign for collection of e-waste from the public started in year 2006 and focuses only to the unit of computer waste. However for e-wastes collected from the domestic areas will not undergo any separation process because absence of segregation facility and therefore e-wastes collected will be sent straight to landfill site. Alam Flora Sdn Bhd does not provide any facility related to collection of schedule wastes and metals because the value for recycling materials is low and the cost for it proper management is high compare to management of conventional wastes. For Shah Alam residents that wanted to discard their E-waste, Alam Flora also provided call and pick up services.

Shah Alam City Council (MBSA) is a local authority in Shah Alam has involved in 3Rs campaign but they focus is not specifically on e-waste. MBSA do not send e-waste to the landfill but e-waste collected to recycling center for further disposal. MBSA indirectly involved in e-waste management for Shah Alam. MBSA has provided a recycling center for Shah Alam community to dispose their bulky wastes and recyclable wastes that include e-wastes. This recycling center known as Shah Alam Recycling Center located in Sekyen 17, Shah Alam, Selangor. With the initiatives located by MBSA to this community; it can be a starting point for e-waste from households to be managed properly.

E-waste recycling

At present, there are about 12 licensed e-waste contractors in Shah Alam which are responsible in collecting and recycling e-waste. According to DOE of Shah Alam, Shah Alam has 11 registered e-waste contractors with only one company having full recovery licenses. The listed e-waste contractor can be found at DOE website. The rest with partial recovery licenses only allowed carrying out collection, disassembly, segregation, and packing. However, only approved full recovery licenser is allowed to conduct precious metal recovery by utilizing chemicals and electrolysis processes.

E-waste collected were dismantled and separated into various part or components which also consist of recyclable and non-recyclable items. The recyclable item usually after processing will be packed for resale locally or export to other countries. Sometimes the recyclable part or component will be distributed to other companies for reuse.

E-waste collected by license contractor will be further send whether to partial recovery facilities or directly to full recovery facilities. Partial recovery e-waste contractor also act as a middleman in collecting e-waste from the generators. Usually they used their own transportation to collect e-waste from the waste generators according to tender sign. Recycling process that carry out in partial recovery facilities include manually dismantle into part or component and segregate them into recyclable or non recyclable components. Type of component that usually can be extracting from e-waste is metal scraps such as cooper, steel and aluminum. For plastic scrap usually this type of waste will be sold to other recyclers from domestic market or local market as secondary raw materials. However, for material that had been separate, sorted and crushed in partial recovery facility still considered as scheduled wastes where it need to further treated at prescribed premises.

At full recovery facilities, they provide services where most of the item will be recovered for better end products. Beside physical treatment process, chemical treatment (stripping) will be used in order to minimize waste from ending up in landfill sites. The products from e-waste recovery become secondary raw materials for other uses in manufacturing sectors.

Disposal of E-waste

E-waste generate in electrical and electrical industry were mostly disposed in the provide bins as either provided by the waste generator or the waste contractor depend on types of E-waste disposed. With the structure mechanism of E-waste management by the industries, the waste disposed is recorded using consignment notes where the quantities of E-waste produced is inventory. Some of non recyclable part or component of E-waste will be treated either in full recovery facilities or disposed at Kualiti Alam facilities.

DOE also has given license to Kualiti Alam in collecting e-waste as they are one of the responsible agencies in Malaysia that handle scheduled wastes. The final product of e-waste recovery is the e-waste residues. These residues will be sent to sanitary landfill in Bukit Nanas together with other wastes that are not recyclable and non hazardous for further disposal processes.

Obstacles in e-waste management

Data from the interview are analyzed. During the analysis, code were renames, clustered and group into four issues and problem discussed by the respondents about e-waste management. In the management aspect, e-waste is very complex because of it tendency to cause serious environmental problem in developing countries as in Malaysia. Obstacle identified is technical issues, lack of trained personal, legislation, financial, infrastructure and awareness.

Technical Issues

The waste generators were responsible with the management of their own scheduled waste include e-waste. Unlike solid waste management where there’s by now have a structured mechanism. According to [name must not be reveal], the volume of the electrical and electronic waste is depends on the EE production and current economy status. Another problem is they cannot afford for the other technology or equipment to process electrical and electronic waste except man power. However, there also some manufacturers in Selangor still selling e-waste to unlicensed collector or recycler because the price offer is high. E-waste contractors in Selangor, mostly collect e-waste from EEE industry but not for household e-waste.

Lack of improper e-waste disposal, this is because the waste generators do not have suitable places to dispose their waste. In Malaysia, there are still small number of facilities who involves with e-waste processing and recovery. Waste collected from manufacturers or large business were dismantle and separate into various parts and components for resale or recycle or recovery locally while household e-wastes were discarded in municipal bins and disposed off in landfill. Lacking of environmental standards and advanced recycling technologies where most of partial recoveries adopted very simple and uncultured methods in order to achieve higher return as much as possible. From the interview conducted with the partial recovery companies, there are two reasons the collectors cannot afford for a better recycling technologies; a) The equipment is too expensive and; b) The volume of e-waste is small while there are a numbers of collectors out there. If they bought the facilities, it will waste their time and money just like the incinerator case. Currently as in Selangor and Malaysia as general, e-waste were collected while only precious metals are extracted.

The recycling processes usually have low recycling rates as for the informal sector where the major thrust for recycling is precious material extraction due to which the other hazardous components are usually dumped in landfill and fate sometimes unknown. However for the formal recycling units the efficiency is less as the collections targets are not met and lack of efficient technologies. According to Dato’ Nadzri Yahaya, there’s an informal sector is going-on where they involved in collecting e-waste dumps with other household waste. The garbage contractors with they own initiative will informally sort out waste that can be recycle such as plastics, aluminum, e-waste, etc before other non-recyclables waste sent to the landfill sites. However, disposal of E-waste from household is an issue where these wastes dispose in the municipal bins together with other wastes as there is still no segregation unlicensed collector where they collect this waste and process only certain part or component of E-waste and treatment for others is unknown. Even the television for example put together with other waste outside the resident premises, after couple of hours, the waste gone and the fate of the waste is unidentified.

Financial Issue

There is not much to discuss about financial issues because this paper focus more to management per se. In Malaysia, E-waste has been treated same as scheduled waste except it is not to dangerous and contaminated if directly contact with this wastes. Currently, there is no financial scheme or initiatives given to the e-waste recyclers by government. According to officer from Kualiti Kitar Alam, the recyclers especially scrap collector that not control or license under DOE buy e-waste from waste generators with high price and the treatment for the waste collected by this parties is unknown. Sometimes, most of the waste contractors consist of illegal contractors or recyclers.

Legislation Issue

Malaysia already has existing regulation on scheduled wastes where e-waste were categorized under SW110 in First Scheduled of Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulation 2005, but this regulation not directly dealing with e-waste from household. Currently, there is no mechanism of proper segregation or disposal system to encourage public recycle and discard e-waste. The continue generation of e-waste over time, together with lack of structured mechanism of institutional framework and inadequate infrastructure causing e-waste management not well set up. Even though at present electrical or electroni