INTRODUCTION

Solid Waste Management includes the waste called municipals solid waste which are
generated from residential, commercial, intuitional and industrial sources. Based on Solid
Waste and Public Cleansing Management Corporation (Swcorp) deputy chief executive
officer, Dr. Mohd Pauze bin Mohamad Taha stated that in Malaysia waste generated average
0.8 kg per capital in a day to 1.12 kg per capital in a day (Pauze, n.d.).

The main waste generator is the urban population which is constitutes more than 65%
of the total population. In 1980, Malaysia population was 13,136,109, increasing to 17,563,420
in 1991, 22,198,276 in 2000, and 27,565,821 in 2010. In the Capital City of Malaysia, Kuala
Lumpur, waste generation rate is growing every year due to uncontrollable consumption as the
population increases, attitude towards spending and high living standard. MSW generation rate
in Kuala Lumpur for 1998-2005 and relationship between population and generation rate of
MSW is shown Table 1. It is undoubtedly shows that MSW generation rate is proportional to
the number of population. (Saeed et al., 2009)

Table 1: KL population waste generation

year KL population Waste generated (ton/day)
1998 1 446 803 2257
2000 1 787 000 3070
2005 2 150 000 3478

Foods, papers and plastics found to be the major components of Malaysia MSW
where it covers 80% of overall weight. These characteristics reflect the nature and lifestyle of
Malaysian. As economy and urbanization of a country growing, waste composition changes.
Significant increase in paper and plastic composition is the most obvious change. The
composition of waste (percentage of wet weight) in Malaysia for 1975-2005 is tabulated in
Table 2.
Table 2: The composition of waste (percentage of wet weight) in Malaysia for 1975-2005

Waste 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

composition
Organic 63.7 54.4 48.3 48.4 45.7 43.2 44.8
Paper 7.0 8.0 23.6 8.9 9.0 23.7 16.0
Plastic 2.5 0.4 9.4 3.0 3.9 11.2 15.0
Glass 2.5 0.4 4.0 3.0 3.9 3.2 3.0
Metal 6.4 2.2 5.9 4.6 5.1 4.2 3.3
Textile 1.3 2.2 NA NA 2.1 1.5 2.8
Wood 6.5 1.8 NA NA NA 0.7 6.7
Other 0.9 0.3 8.8 32.1 4.3 12.3 8.4

Based on the data obtain from journal Municipal Solid Waste Management in
Malaysia: Current Practices, Challenges and Prospect written by Mashitah Mat Dona, the
total composition of recycle able material such as paper , plastic, glass and metal is 37.3 % in
2005 (Saeed et al., 2009). In Malaysia, the preferred method practiced for the disposal of
MSW is through landfill and most of the sites are open dumping areas. Open dumping
landfill is preferable due to it is the cheapest cost and most common method to treat solid
waste (CAP, 2001). This practices could lead to lot of severe impacts on environment and
also unethical because a portion of the waste that been generated can be recovered to be
refine or reuse as other purpose. The problem arising from this huge amount of solid waste is
finding a systematic process to manage through minimizing the waste going to the landfill by
recovering recycle material in the solid waste or derive the waste into other usage. Thus,
recovery and process facilities such as Material recovery facilities is one of solution to treat
this waste.
RECOVERY AND PROCESS FACILITIES

UNIT PROCESS

The unit process used for separation and process in MRF is to modify the physical
characteristics of the waste so that waste components can be removed more easily. It is also
to remove specific components and contaminants from the waste stream, and to process and
prepare the separated materials for subsequent uses.

Size Reduction

Waste materials are mechanically reduced in size. Mechanical size-reduction operations by

shredding, glass crushers, wood grinders and milling. The objective is to obtain a final
product that is reasonably uniform and considerably reduced in size

Shredder

Most common types of shredding devices used to reduce the size are the hammer mill, the
flail mill or shredder, and the shear shredder. Other examples include cutters, cage
disintegrators, drum pulverizers, and wet pulpers.

Glass Crushers

Used to crush glass containers and other glass products after it has been separated to reduce
storage and shipping costs.

Wood Grinders

Most wood grinders are wood chippers, used to shred large pieces of wood (e.g., large
branches, broken pallets) into chips which can be used as a fuel, and finer material, which can
be composted.

SCREENING

Screening is used to achieving efficient separation of particle through dependence on

difference between particles size with respect to any two dimension. (Vaithinathan, 2014)

Trommel Screening

The trommel has proven to be quite effective and efficient for processing mixed waste and
other mixtures where large, flat particles (e.g., paper) and aggregate-type particles (e.g.,
crushed glass) must be separated. (Vaithinathan, 2014)
 Figure 1 : Trommel Screening

Disc screening

Disc screens have been employed in many waste processing facilities. The predominant
applications to date are effecting the separation of inorganic materials from refuse-derived
fuel fractions, from paper materials, or from wood waste. (Vaithinathan, 2014)

Figure 2: Disc Screening

MAGNETIC SEPARATOR

Magnetic separation is a process used to segregate magnetic (i.e., ferrous) metal from a
mixture of different types of materials, e.g., mixed waste or commingled metal, glass, and
plastic containers. The process is technically simple and of relatively low cost. (George
Tchobanoglous et al., 2002).

AIR CLASIFICATION

Air classification is a process of separating categories of materials by way of differences in

their respective aerodynamic characteristics. The aerodynamic characteristic of a particular
material is primarily a function of the size, geometry, and density of the particles. The
suspended fraction conventionally is referred to as the air classified light fraction and the
settled fraction is termed air-classified heavy fraction. The confined volume in which the
separation takes place is called an air classifier (George Tchobanoglous, Frank kerith,
2002).
 MATERIAL RECOVERY FACILITIES

Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) is to separate a waste stream into streams of saleable
recyclables and a residual stream for final disposal that contains non-recyclable materials and
non-recovered recyclables.

CLEAN MRF

A clean MRF accepts recyclable comingled materials that have already been separated at the
source from municipal solid waste generated by either residential or commercial sources.
There are a variety of clean MRFs. The most common are single stream where all recyclable
material is mixed, or dual stream MRFs, where source-separated recyclables are delivered in
a mixed container stream (typically glass, ferrous metal, aluminum and other non-ferrous
metals, plastics) and a mixed paper stream including corrugated cardboard boxes,
newspapers, magazines, office paper and junk mail. Material is sorted to specifications, then
baled, shredded, crushed, compacted, or otherwise prepared for shipment to market.
(Hosansky, n.d.)

The single-stream process flow, presented in Fig. 1, is designed to recover fiber, glass,
metals, and plastic from a commingled recyclables stream. The equipment layout represents a
general configuration based on a review and synthesis of visits to several single-stream MRFs
currently in operation in the U.S. The collected recyclables are unloaded from arriving trucks
on the tipping floor, where rolling stock (e.g., a front end loader) pushes material to a drum
feeder. The drum feeder distributes material to the first belt conveyor at a constant rate,
helping prevent the overload of downstream equipment. The first belt conveyor leads to a
manual sort where large items and materials harmful to downstream equipment (e.g., wire)
are removed for disposal. Additionally plastic film (i.e., plastic bags) is recovered with a
vacuum and sent to the 2-way baler. All other materials continue to incline Disc Screen 1
where old corrugated containers (OCC) is recovered as it flows over the screen and is sent to
the 1-way baler. The under (i.e., material that goes through the screen) from Disc Screen 1
travel to inclined Disc Screen 2, where newsprint is separated from containers. The under
from Disc Screen 2, which are enriched in containers, fall on to a belt conveyor that leads to
Disc Screen 3, which separates the remaining fiber from the container stream. Smaller sheets
of fiber flow over Disc Screen 3, while containers and other materials fall through. The fiber
streams separated by Disc Screens 2 and 3 proceed to a manual sort to remove contaminants
before the streams are combined and sent to the 1-way baler. The composition of this fiber
stream includes newsprint as well as all other fiber types accepted by the MRF. The unders
from Disc Screen 3 proceed to a glassbreaker screen, where glass is broken into cullet, which
falls through the screen with fines. The glass and fines go to an air knife that separates the
fines and other light materials from the glass.The glass is sent to an optical sorter, where it is
sorted by color The color-separated glass is then subjected to a manual sort, where ceramics
and other contaminants are removed. The overs from the glass breaker screen are conveyed to
an optical sorter that recovers PET. The remaining stream is conveyed to a second optical
sorter that removes all colours of HDPE. The remaining stream proceeds to a magnet for
ferrous recovery. The material remaining after the magnet proceeds to an eddy current
separator for aluminum recovery. The remaining residual stream goes to a manual sort, where
any recyclable materials missed by the separation equipment are recovered by pickers and
sent to the 2-way baler. All non-recovered material is transported offsite for final disposal.
The aluminum, ferrous, HDPE, and PET streams are separated and stored in cages prior to
baling. Each stream is inspected for contaminants prior to baling. Contaminants are combined
into a residual stream that is sent offsite for final disposal. Rolling stock is used throughout
the facility to move material. Individual pieces of rolling stock equipment are not modeled.
Instead, all rolling stock fuel use is modeled using a single coefficient in units of L fuel per
incoming Mg. (Phillip N. Pressley et al., 2015).
The figure 1 show the block diagram process of single-stream MRF. This equipment
configuration is used to recover aluminum, ferrous, glass, HDPE containers, mixed paper,
OCC, PET containers, andplastic film from a commingled recyclable stream. All arrows
represent belt conveyors except those ending at Recycling and Residual.

Figure 1: Single-stream MRF process flow.

MIXED-WASTE MRF

A mixed-waste processing system, sometimes referred to as a dirty MRF, accepts a mixed

solid waste stream and then proceeds to separate out designated recyclable materials through
a combination of manual and mechanical sorting. The sorted recyclable materials may
undergo further processing required to meet technical specifications established by end-
markets while the balance of the mixed waste stream is sent to a disposal facility such as a
landfill. Today, MWPFs are attracting renewed interest as a way to address low participation
rates for source-separated recycling collection systems and prepare fuel products and/or
feedstocks for conversion technologies. MWPFs can give communities the opportunity to
recycle at much higher rates than has been demonstrated by curbside or other waste collection
systems. Advances in technology make todays MWPF different and, in many respects better,
than older versions.

The mixed-waste MRF process is identical to Fig. 1 except a trommel screen is placed
immediately after the drum feeder to remove organics and fines, as shown in Fig. 1 because
the MSW stream contains more contaminants (i.e., non-recoverable materials such as food
waste), equipment separation efficiencies are lower for mixed-waste MRFs than single-
stream MRFs. (Phillip N. Pressley et al., 2015).
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