Malaysia's stand on municipal solid waste conversion to energy: A review

Malaysia is a fast emerging economy country with an average GDP growth of 4.6% and its outlook on energy generation and sustainable development are at the center of debate. It is estimated that each 1% growth in its GDP to be associated with 1.2-1.5% increase in total energy demand. An annual growth rate of 3.3% has been projected for municipal solid waste (MSW) production in the country while it lacks a comprehensive waste management network and over 80% of collected MSW is landfilled in inert, and unsanitary sites. This paper summarizes the status of the waste management techniques currently being used in Malaysia followed by an overview of sustainability analysis of the potential energy-recovered waste treatment techniques. It is concluded that retrofitting current landfill sites to capture methane is of great interest as it requires less time and investment in comparison with standard energy-recovered waste incinerator. The use of sophisticated waste incineration plants will be inevitable and other approaches such as gasification, and pyrolysis should be considered as well. Gasification, and pyrolysis are easily adaptable to bulky or powder-like wastes and drying of wet waste is performed through osmosis at no energy expenses. Due to the high level of moisture in Malaysian MSW, they therefore appear to be suitable options. In addition, an upgraded Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) embracing waste-to-energy techniques will effectively help to increase usage of renewable energy sources to acquire a green energy mix. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.