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Introduction

Environmental pollution occurs when pollutants contaminate the natural surroundings.

Pollution disturbs the balance of our ecosystems, affect our normal lifestyles and
gives rise to human illnesses and global warming. Pollution has reached its peak due
to the development and modernisation in our lives. With the development of science
and technology, there has been a huge growth of human potentials. People have
become prisoners of their own creations. Malaysia have outlined a various measures
and initiatives to combat the global climate change, primarily in reducing the
pollution that currently plagued the world. Contributions may seem to be minimal,
however, with the given time and effort, the pollution level will be definitely reduced.
The global pollution level in the world is caused by various contributions notably land,
air and water pollution. These pollutions had contributed the world climate change
alarming issue.

Air Pollution Monitoring and Control

The Air Pollution Index is a set of measurement to determine the air quality status of
Malaysia, developed during the year of 1993 by the Department of Environment of
Malaysia, which is equivalent to the standards being set by the World Health
Organization. The Department of Environment had established and installed a total of
52 air quality monitoring outpost, aimed to make constant supervision on the air
quality Index level across Malaysia. The factors that affecting the air quality index
level is primarily comprised of pollutants include ozone, carbon monoxide, nitrogen
dioxide, sulphur dioxide and suspended particles, which measurement level is able to
filter and narrow down in the magnitude of 10 microns. The collected data is then
transfer and pool at the measuring outpost, converging into a single number, put into a
range of 0 to 500. The degree of pollution level is decided by the higher or lower
values of the API index. (Mustafa, 2012)

According to Mustafa (2012), the Regulations 1978 are the basis of providing
regulatory approach in controlling the emission of air pollutants, any pitch-black
smoke that emit from any primary sources such as industrial chimneys, heavy

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machinery and refineries. Furthermore, Malaysia also enact Environmental Quality
Act 1974 which aimed to reduce and control smoke and gaseous output from sources
such as diesel and petrol engines. The Department of Environment possessed the
authority right to issue fine or penalties to those private or corporate user in exceeding
the given smoke output limit.

Besides, emission of combustive engine sources are also restricted by the Regulations,
which modification or replacement made to the engine system are required to make
test run of the preset emission standards, ensuring all the pollutants does not exceed
the limit. Establishment of First Schedule by the Malaysia Department of
Environment had set the emission standards of pollutants for diesel engine, the
Second Schedule had to ensure new vehicles that registered on or after 1 January 1997
passed the emission standard of pollutants. (Jabatan Alam Sekitar Malaysia, 2009)

Petrol engines users also received similar environmental regulative policies as the
diesel engines users, under the Control of Emission from Petrol Engines 1996. The
idling test method is adopted by the Department of Environment to gauge petrol
engine users to extract emission reports from the designated vehicles or machinery.
The results of overall test compliance was reported over a satisfying 98 percent. The
standard is further enact on any new registered vehicles on or after 1 January 2000,
the indicator for petrol engine user emission standards are not allowed to surpass 2.2
g/km of carbon monoxide while the burning of hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxides are
not allowed to surpass .06 g/km.

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Enforcement Strategies

Various enforcement strategies were adopted by local Malaysian authorities in

contributing valiant efforts to reduce global pollution.

Table 1.0 Online Reporting Platform for self-regulatory system of pollution control.

Online Platform Description

eSWIS (Electronic Waste It is a schedule waste management inventory

Information Systems ) management system developed by Department of
Environment (DOE) to detect the scheduled movement
of wastes from the waste generators to the prescribed
premises.

The system was introduced in 2007 known as

e-Consignment Note (e-CN) and through several phases
of improvements before eSWIS was reintroduced.

OER (Online Allow corporate users to input their information such as

Environmental Reporting)
module treatment system, particularly for palm oil and
rubber mill operators and owners. Besides, mixed and
industrial effluent are also required by DOE for the
users to input their relevant information. Reporting
system such as quality of sewage discharge information
are enforced by DOE to the corporate users.

CEMS (Continuous An integrated system of monitoring air quality

emission monitoring equipments that determine the level of pollutants by
system) using various analyzers and indicators.

EHSNR (Notification and Initiated during the year of 2009, the Department of
Registration of Environmental of Malaysia promote the EHSNR
Environmentally programs to the manufacturers and importers as a part

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Hazardous Substances ) of tracking and tracing any potential harmful chemical
substances, and prevent any possible outbreak of inflow
of chemical substances into the Malaysian soil

Sourced from : https://www.aecen.org/sites/default/files/country_report_malaysia.pdf

The Regulations and environmental control adopted by the Malaysian

government.

Figure 1.0 The big picture of Malaysian pollution control standards.

Sourced from https://www.aecen.org/sites/default/files/country_report_malaysia.pdf

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Malaysia Water Quality Management

The establishment of law were able to help Malaysia to reduce environmental

problems, the most notable water quality management laws that currently being
practised in the Malaysian soil are 1929 Mining Enactment, the 1930 Waters
Enactment, the 1954 Drainage Works Ordinance and the 1974 Street, Drainage and
Building Act. Each of these laws have very specific function to serve various specific
areas of activities. The utilization of fluent water flow and system is the core
functioning of the regulations, regulations that govern public water pollution is stricter
than those pollution discharged by industrial areas. The river water quality is also
being constantly being monitored and checked on a regular basis to ensure the water
quality does not surpass the required environment standards.

Prevention

Activities or projects that will pollute the environment such as mining activities,
petrol refining industries, waste treatment and disposal locations, manufacturing
industries, tourism industry, and residential and commercial property development, all
are required to comply with the 1974 Environmental Quality Act, which under the
clause of Section 34A, where the relevant parties that involve in contributing the
pollution factors, must submit a report that covered the potential pollution output and
environmental risk being resulted from their activities. Aside from the activities that
being outlined in the prior sentence, Malaysia would dispatch evaluation team to carry
on-site assessment in order to accurately gauge the correction amount of pollution
output and extract any information regarding waste disposal.

In addition, a written permission must be obtained from the Department of

Environment of Malaysia concerning Industrial Sewage Discharge and Waste
Disposal, which is regulated under the Environmental Quality Regulations 1979.

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Water Pollution Sources and Control

The major contributing factor to the Water Pollution in Malaysia is predominantly

contributed by waste treatment plants, agricultural related industries, manufacturing
industries, waste water from residential and commercial areas, and livestock
industries. Besides, tree removal and other obstacles such as land, stones and masons,
are also instrumental in contaminating the water sources around Malaysia.

Agriculture related industries

In the early 90’s, the natural rubber and palm oil industries were experiencing rapid
growth rates, boosted by the exploitation of local and international conglomerates to
harvest the untapped natural resources in Malaysia. Under the supervision of
Malaysian government, these industries are not only boosting the national economy,
but also provide and instigate effective pollution control measures, which resulted
from intensive research and development. Since 1977, the communities and top
management in the natural rubber and palm oil industries had been working closely
with the legislative bodies, in order to eagerly meet the licensing requirements, the
positive results is reported at reduction of 90 percent of the total generated wastage
and pollution.

Manufacturing Industries

Manufacturing industries is one the main drivers in contributing the Malaysian

national economy, but the rapid development of the manufacturing industries has also
increase the burden of environmental problem in a global scale. Wastewater
management systems were enforced by the Department of Environment in order to
filter out any inorganic pollutants, toxic wastes and undegradable pollutants, which
was crucial to protect these harmful elements to flow into the water sources. One of
the main challenges for small to medium size enterprises or SME lack the financial
background to install effective waste management controls, constraining them from
fulfilling or take part in the environmental control.

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Furthermore, educating the manufacturing industries professionals and top
management to adopt a cleaner production facilities, reuse of waste materials,
recycling measures, collection of rainwater with the given wide amount of spaces,
which can optimize production efficiency and reduce operational costs a swell.
Certifications such as ISO 14001 are also aggressively promote in manufacturing
industries, which signifying their participation in complying environmental standards
and engage in satisfactory corporate social responsibility.

The concept of cradle-to-grave concept is being introduced into the management

system of the companies, which effectively cut down the release of haphazard toxic
waste and unmanageable permanent organic pollutants. Since August 1998,
Malaysian government had been actively participating in indoctrinate laws to monitor
and control, waste generation, storage of wastage, transportation of wastage, treatment
and disposal of wastage.

Sewage Disposal and Sewerage Works

Sewage pollution is one of the major environmental in the world, where Malaysia can
do its part in reducing this problem in a national scale. Public health had been
negatively affected by the harmful side effects of contaminated sewage systems. Since
1994, Malaysian government had assigned a privatized company to responsible for
the sewage reworks, treatment and disposal, covering 86 out of 144 regional areas.

Residential and commercial buildings

The discharge of waste waters can be thoroughly filtered and gated in order to keep
the outflow of water cleaner and free from harmful bacteria or microorganisms, which
the water treatment specializing company, simply known as PBA, which is supported
by the government initiatives, to supervise and monitor the proper filtration and
treatment of the waste waters.

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Malaysia implementation of effective waste management

As the economic development increase in a rapid rate, so does the generation of waste,
which primarily can be sourced from domestic, industrial and commercial waste
generation. (Zia & Devadas, 2009 )

Waste Management Policies and Programmes

Formation of Malaysia’s solid waste management were founded on the basis of

private companies, which predominantly formed by these four institutions, Urban
Solid Waste Management; Government- Funded Public information programs; Master
Plan for a Greener and Cleaner Malaysia; and Recycling programms. (Sakawi, 2011)
The Master Plan for a Greener and Cleaner Malaysia formed the fundamental
guidelines and framework for participating parties to engage in the protocols and
procedures. (Sakawi, 2011)

Waste Management Technology

Recycling refers to the accumulation and reprocess or reuse of wastage disposal,

incineration refers to eliminating wastage disposal through combustion chambers.
(Badgie, 2012) Composting refers to the filtration and categorization of municipal
solid waste into categories of biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste. (Bacinschi,
2010)

Badgie (2012), indicated that the most ideal waste disposal measures to handle
various types of materials is utilizing landfill. Referring to Table 1, incremental usage
of landfill methods can be seen throughout the present and anticipated future timeline.
However, Malaysia had smaller scale of operation comparing to their western
counterparts, which is not fully integrated enough to maximize the full potential of
landfill methods. (Sakawi, 2011)

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Table 2.0: Measures adopted by Malaysia authorities to engage in waste disposal
activities. (Periathamby, 2007)

Methods Waste Disposed in Percentage (%)

2002 2006 Target 2020

Recycling 5.0 505 22.0

Composting 0.0 1.0 8.0

Incineration 0.0 0.0 16.8

Inert Landfill 0.0 3.2 9.1

Sanitary 5.0 30.9 44.1

Landfill

Other Disposal 90.0 59.4 0.0

locations

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0

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Malaysians in the road of contributing to reduce global pollution

The table below outline the possibility that Malaysian can adopt, which supported by
various researchers and effective waste management methods that can be adopted and
implement in the Malaysian soil.

Doctrines Elaboration

Integration of The utilization of the latest technologies allowed Malaysia to

state-of-the art implement various green technologies to help combat global
technologies and pollution, various technologies had been successfully
facilities (Saeed 2009; implemented in other countries especially the Western
Periathamby 2009) counterparts nations, where landfilling is widely adopted and
commonly practised.

Integration of well Recycling can be further improved on Malaysian ground,

adverse recycling that intensive marketing with the aid of IoT (Internet of
privatized and Things) and utilization of Big Data analytic, as the ever
government supported forward integration of mobile application, recycling will be
consortium (Yuan, an easy task to accomplish. As Malaysian are avid users of
2011) smartphones, the market demand for recycling will be
tremendously increase and improve, hence motivating large
numbers of users to participate in the newly formed trend.

Collected recyclable materials and items, can be

commercialized and resold to other manufacturing plants or
buyers, that able to reprocess and re-manufacture the
respective items, as each of the items are valued at certain
monetary price, public can be benefited as part of their side
income.

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Application for more Monetary or financing measures is one of the main drivers
fundraising campaigns to motivate recycling trend across Malaysia, the purchase of
to combat global highly efficient semi-automated garbage trucks, and
pollution in Malaysia seminars to be conducted to raise public awareness, all the
(Saeed 2009; Yuan, prior activities are required a substantial amount of
2011) financing to keep the operation running and well maintained.

Besides, in a corporate scale, waste management methods

are costly to implement, but with the aid of investment
packages from funder such as venture capitalists or
government backed programme, will definitely raise and
increase the tendency of Malaysian based company to
embrace the effective waste management methods.

Tighter regulative Illegal waste dumping had been always been a major issue
approach and in Malaysia. (Saeed, 2009) The illegal garbage waste
enforcement task force dumping can be seen in almost any strategic location across
(Manaf, 2009; Yuan, the Malaysia landscape, the behavioral dumping and
2011) littering of Malaysians have largely contributed to this issue
as well.

Integration of tighter laws such as effective penalties that

worked and enforced to individual and corporate offenders.
With the aid of technologies, the offenders can be caught
easily and summon an adequate amount of penalties, in
order to reduce the undesirable behaviour of Malaysians.

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Pursuit of increasing Malaysians are in need to adopt various policies that are in
the awareness among effective of waste management methods, which allows the
Malaysians (Manaf, loop to be closed, and achieve better waste reduction. For
2009; Yuan, 2011) instance, the awareness of using own personal washable
utensils and containers is very effective in reducing large
amount of single-use items such as plastics bags, plastics
spoons and several miscellaneous non-recyclable items.

If every Malaysian bring their own shopping bags and

reusable utensils and containers, a large scale of waste
reduction can be foreseen in Malaysia. Hence, it is very
crucial to improve the awareness of using less single use
items, where the Penang State Government had successfully
implemented such programmes and ban single use plastic
bags. Clear examples can be seen after the event of night
market and bazaar, where rubbish dumps can be seen overfill
with unpleasant stench of rubbish smell.

Public education campaigns must be in conjunction with the

waste reduction strategies to work, which will ultimately
force the plastic bags manufacturers to embrace shift of
business model to support greener products.

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Conclusion

Global polluting issues can be reduced in the light of motivated and well aware
societies, it is an integration of the diverse and variety of relevant parties such as
governmental organization, multinational conglomerates, individual and
non-governmental organization to achieve and realize the state of greener and cleaner
cities in Malaysia, the contribution and hardworking of Malaysians will be
acknowledged and recognized, as the global pollution index will be reduced as a
results of Malaysians efforts, considering all the measures mentioned in this research
as a benefit of humankind and our future upcoming generations to born in a healthier
and less polluted cities across the world.

(2673 words)

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References

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and implications of the solid waste bill, 2007. Journal of material cycles and waste
management. 2009. vol. 11(2): pp. 96-103.

A. Manaf .(2009) ,Municipal solid waste management in Malaysia: Practices and

challenges. Waste Management. 2009. vol. 29(11): pp. 2902-2906

H. P. Yuan (2011), Major Obstacles to Improving the Performance of Waste

Management in China's Construction Industry. Facilities. 2011. vol. 29(5/6): pp.
224-242

H. Zia and V. Devadas.(2007). Municipal Solid Waste Management in Kanpur, India:

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M. Mustafa.(2011) Environmental Law in Malaysia. The Netherlands: Kluwer Law

International. 2011.

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M.Mustafa.(2011) Environmental Quality Act 1974: A Tool Towards the
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Maizatun Mustafa, Sharifah Zubaidah Syed Abdul Kader and Azlinor Sufian,( 2012),
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Z. Bacinschi, et al (2010). Waste management practices used in the attempt to protect

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Appendices

Figure 1.0 The big picture of Malaysian pollution control standards.

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