SUSTAINABLE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT FOR ISLAND RESORTS: POTENTIAL FOR PERHENTIAN ISLAND, TERENGGANU.

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1 SUSTAINABLE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT FOR ISLAND RESORTS: POTENTIAL FOR PERHENTIAN ISLAND, TERENGGANU. M. Rafee Majid, PhD 1* and Owee Boon Hwee 2 Department of Urban and Regional Planning Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Skudai, Johor, MALAYSIA rafee@utm.my, oweebh@yahoo.co.uk ABSTRACT: Malaysia is blessed with many idyllic tropical islands favoured by many an ecotourist. Perhentian Island, located in the South China Sea at the northeastern corner of Peninsular Malaysia, has been one of the favorites whose tourism activities have increased considerably. Located about 21km offshore, the 15km 2 island has seen its number of resorts grow from five (~100 rooms) in 1985 to more than forty now (~1200 rooms). The recent annual tourist arrival for the island is about sixty thousands, compared to a local population of only one thousand three hundreds residing in the only village on the island. With growth comes the problem of managing the solid waste generated by the island s tourism industry. Onsite burying of solid waste that was practiced during its early days of tourism business is no longer suitable and sustainable due to land scarcity. The current practice of hauling the waste to be landfilled on the mainland 21km away is viewed by many to be uneconomical and is putting unwanted stress on the fast-shrinking landfill space. The local authority administering the island is now looking for a better way of managing this waste. In order to help the local authority with the problem, a study on the possibility of practicing composting and recycling on the island has been carried out by the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. This paper discusses the findings of the study. A survey of the composition of solid waste from restaurants, the main generators of waste on the island, was carried out to determine the type and amount of waste generated daily. On average, a restaurant on the island generates about one hundred kilograms of solid waste daily with organic waste represents about eighty percents of the amount by weight. This makes a good case for setting up a composting facility on the island. A questionnaire survey of the resort operators and tourists were also carried out to gauge their willingness to support a hypothetical composting and recycling program. The responses obtained were encouraging where majority surveyed not only agreed to such a program but also willing to participate/contribute. Keyword: Resort island, Composting, Recycling, Sustainable waste management. 1 Lecturer & 2 Student * Corresponding author 1.0 INTRODUCTION In 2002, population living in the local authority areas in Peninsular Malaysia generated about 17,000 tonnes of solid waste daily according to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (2003). The same ministry also estimated an average generation of 0.85kg/cap/day. According to the ministry again about 76% of this waste were collected but only a meager 1-2% were recycled while the remainder were taken to disposal sites. In its effort to change the current unsustainable practice of solid waste management, the ministry has identified the need for more research on strategic plans for solid waste management, solid waste composition and characteristics, recycling, composting, refusederived fuel, etc. Sustainable solid waste management is among the key Research paper presented at The 1st International Conference on Built Environment in Developing Countries (ICBEDC 2007), 1-2 December 2007, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

2 principles to guide the ministry s strategic plan on solid waste management. Through sustainable solid waste management the ministry is targeting to change the waste hierarchy of 95% landfill/5% recovery to <65% landfill/15% intermediate processing/>20% recycling by the year Most of the current and past studies on solid waste management in Malaysia concentrate on municipal areas whose solid waste are commonly categorized into residential, commercial, institutional and industrial wastes. Not that many studies have been done on sustainable management of solid waste generated on island resorts. Those studies that were done focused more on one specific treatment of waste such as thermal treatment or incineration. There are several factors that make management of wastes from island resorts an interesting case to study. One is the limited land available on the island itself which puts a strong case for a sustainable integrated waste management. Second is the peculiarity of the waste which a high proportion of it comes from the resorts restaurants/kitchens whose limited number make them easy to manage. Third is the probability that the level of awareness on sustainable waste practice is high among the tourists holidaying at the resorts. On the basis of these factors, a study was carried out to investigate the possibility of implementing a better and more sustainable solid waste management program on the resort island of Pulau Perhentian in Terengganu. This paper describes part of the outcome of the study. 2.0 PERHENTIAN ISLAND: BACKGROUND AND TOURISM Pulau Perhentian or Perhentian Island is located in the South China Sea some 21km northeast of Kuala Besut in the State of Terengganu (Figure 1). The name Pulau Perhentian is commonly used to refer to a group of islands in the vicinity made up of two major islands Perhentian Besar and Perhentian Kechil and several small islands surrounding these major islands. The islands can be reached by boat either from Kuala Besut in Terengganu or Tok Bali in Kelantan which is closer by 6km. A boat trip to the islands can take between minutes depending on the sea condition. The land area of this group of islands is about 1500 hectares. The most important economic activity on the islands is tourism. Thanks to the clear blue sea, white sandy beaches and colourful coral communities, this group of islands have become a famous holiday destination among locals as well as foreigners. Tourists go to Perhentian Island for a variety of reasons including the beach, snorkeling, scuba diving, fishing, etc. Tourist season 2

3 begins in March until late October when the South China Sea is calmer. Due to their popularity, the islands have seen the number of resorts grow from five (~100 rooms) in 1985 to more than forty now (~1000 rooms). None of the small islands though has any resort on them. The recent annual tourist arrival for the island is about sixty thousands, compared to a local population of only one thousand three hundreds residing in the only village on the island, Kampung Pasir Hantu on Perhentian Kechil. N Figure 1: Perhentian Islands 3.0 CURRENT SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT ON PERHENTIAN ISLAND Pulau Perhentian is under the administration of Majlis Daerah Besut or MDB. As such, all matters pertaining to solid waste management on the islands are under the administration of MDB. With growth comes the problem of managing the solid waste generated by the island s tourism industry. Onsite burying of solid waste that was practiced during early days of tourism business is no longer suitable and sustainable due to land scarcity. At present solid wastes from the island generated by the resorts are still managed in a conventional way. This conventional practice which requires hauling the waste to be landfilled on the mainland 21km away is viewed by 3

4 many to be uneconomical and is putting unwanted stress on the fast-shrinking landfill space. The process involves three parties/actors, i.e. the resort operators, a waste collection contractor appointed by MDB and MDB (Figure 2). The resort operators would collect their wastes in plastic bags before transferring the bags to a special floating platform (pontoon) (Photo 1) daily before 9:00am. A quick survey on the operators revealed that most of the operators did not recycle anything except for 20% of them who recycled some aluminum cans. The pontoon acts as a transfer station for these bags of wastes before they are collected for transportation to a landfill on the mainland in Kuala Besut. The appointed solid waste contractor (transporter) would then use a big boat to make his round around the islands collecting the bagged wastes from the pontoons and then transporting them to Kuala Besut jetty on the mainland. Though appointed by MDB, the solid waste contractor is paid directly by the resort operators. The collecting fees paid vary according to number of resort rooms and they range from less than a hundred to more than six hundred ringgits per year. Depending on the weather and some other reasons, these bags of wastes could be sitting on the pontoons for three days to one week before getting transferred to the landfill. Also depending on the weather, the contractor may take up to four hours collecting wastes from these pontoons and then another hour to travel from the islands to the Kuala Besut jetty. From the jetty the wastes would be then be loaded to the waiting MDB lorries for disposal at a landfill operated by MDB. Looking at the current practice of solid waste management described above, there is no doubt that there are some weaknesses and potentials. Considering the fact that most of the wastes are kitchen wastes from the resorts, there is a very high chance that a good percentage of the wastes are organic wastes that can be composted. Source-separation of these wastes would not be much of a problem due to their minimal number of generators. Leaving these wastes in black plastic bags out in the open does not go well with the image of the islands as a tourist destination. When left too long in the hot sun the wastes can produce an offensive fetid smell, especially downwind. To make things worst, the plastic bags are not secured on the pontoons subjecting them to the rough sea during bad weather. Having to transport the wastes to the mainland for disposal is also not sustainable. It requires a lot of fuel to drive the big boat for almost five hours each trip in order to collect the waste bags from all the pontoons around the islands and then transport them 4

5 to the mainland. Better ways of managing these wastes should therefore be explored and one possibility is through encouraging composting and recycling. Wastes collected in plastic bags. Almost no separation of waste. Only minimal recycling of aluminum cans WASTE GENERATOR (resorts) Bagged wastes delivered daily by generators before 09:00 a.m Bagged wastes on pontoons for 3 days to 1 weeks (max). PONTOONS (transfer station) Wastes transported to mainland after: 4 hours of collecting them from pontoons 1 hour boat travel from the islands to the Kuala Besut Jetty KUALA BESUT JETTY Waiting MDB lorries transport the wastes to a landfill 10km away No resource recovery facility No composting and recycling. Takes up a lot of space LANDFILL Figure 2: Current Solid Waste Management on the Islands Photo 1: Garbage Bags On A Floating Pontoon Waiting For Collection (Left) and Close Up Of The Floating Pontoon (Right) 4.0 PURPOSE OF STUDY This study begins with a premise that the current management of solid waste from the resorts is unsustainable and there is a lot of room for improvement. Given the fact that a significant amount of the waste come from the resorts kitchens and rooms which are, for lack of a better term, point sources, this 5

6 creates a huge opportunity for better management of the waste through composting and recycling. Composting would be for organic wastes from the kitchens and garden/yard wastes from around the resorts while recycling would be for recyclables from the resorts rooms. Source separation of these wastes is however required to make composting and recycling successful. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the potential for composting and recycling by determining the solid waste composition, especially the compostable constituents, and the willingness of the parties involved to participate. Waste composition is determined in the field by separating and weighing samples of wastes generated daily according to waste categories. Meanwhile, willingness of resort operators and tourists to participate in a composting and recycling program is measured through a questionnaire survey. 5.0 METHOD Since the bulk of the waste was anticipated to come from restaurants rather than resort rooms and the main aim of the study was to look at the potential for composting of kitchen wastes, only wastes that originated from the restaurants were studied. As such, restaurants became the unit of analysis of the study rather than resorts. Moreover, of the total forty three resorts on the islands only ten do not operate a restaurant and these ten have rooms not more than ten each. Since restaurants were the unit of analysis, the number of tables at each restaurant was used as a measure of the size of each restaurant. Thus, the common denominator used to describe the amount of waste generated is the weight of waste per table. There were a total of thirty three restaurants on the islands serving the tourists. The size of these restaurants, according to the number of tables, ranged from as small as five tables to as big as sixty tables. The average number of tables was almost nineteen tables per restaurant. Ten restaurants were randomly selected as samples whose daily waste compositions were analyzed. Since the amount of wastes might vary between weekdays and weekends due to the difference in the number of tourists, sampling was carried out during both weekends and weekdays. In fact, two weekend days (Saturday and Sunday) and two weekdays in the month of March were selected as sampling periods to get a true representation of daily waste generation. Sample collection was timed to coincide with the regular tourist season on the island. Since the intention of the study was to assess the 6

7 amount of wastes that have potential for composting and recycling, it was decided that the wastes be categorized to fit such intention. Hence the categories of wastes decided on were as shown in Table 1. Table 1: Categories of Wastes. Waste Category Examples Organic Wastes (Food wastes) Mostly food wastes from the kitchen and restaurant leftovers Paper Wood Cans(Metals) Plastics Glass Garden/Yard Wastes Tissue papers, paper wrappers, etc. Wooden stuffs, utensils, furniture parts, etc. Drink cans, food cans and alike. Plastic bags, plastic bottles, containers, etc. Glass bottles, flatware, etc. Leaves, small twigs, grass clippings, etc. Wastes from each restaurant that had been collected in plastic bags the previous day were sorted according to the above categories and then weighed and recorded on site early in the morning. Care was taken to make sure that the analyzed wastes were the total wastes accumulated within one day. The average daily weight of the waste compositions over the sampled four days (two weekend days and two weekday days) was than calculated for each restaurant. In addition to the survey on the waste composition, a questionnaire survey was also carried out on the operators of the restaurants as well as on some one hundred and twenty randomly-selected tourists. The survey on the restaurants operators were carried out to gauge their willingness to participate in a hypothetical composting and recycling program. The questionnaire asked them if they were willing to source separate their wastes, to provide separate recycling bins in the rooms and to pay fees for the success of the hypothetical composting program. The tourists, on the other hand, were asked on their opinions on the state of solid waste management on the island as well as their willingness to participate in the hypothetical recycling program. 6.0 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS Of the total thirty three restaurants on the island, the ten restaurants randomly selected for this study had size ranging from seven to sixty tables, giving an average of thirty four tables per restaurant. The waste composition study gave 7

8 some encouraging results on the potential amount of organic wastes and recyclables that can be diverted from the landfill. Table 2 below details the waste composition by weight according to categories. Table 1:Composition of Solid Waste Waste Category Average Weight (kg/day) Average Weight (%) Organic waste (food wastes) Paper Timber Cans Plastics (Bottles/bags) Glass Yard Wastes Assuming only organic (food) wastes and yard wastes are compostable, the study revealed that almost 77% (by weight) of the daily wastes coming from the restaurants have the potential to be composted. This percentage is slightly higher than the 70% figure reported by Nazeri et al. (2002) in their study of residential waste in Kuala Lumpur. Meanwhile, the amount of recyclables such as paper, cans, plastics and glasses reached 21.5% of the total weight which was very close to the 25.5% reported by Nazeri et al. The average weights of waste generated daily were plotted against the number of tables of restaurants to show a good linear relationship as shown in Figure 3 below. The straight line of Y= X has the coefficient of determination R 2 of Using this linear relationship between the number of tables and the amount of waste to project the total wastes generated daily by the restaurants on the island gives us about 2,641 kg of wastes. Assuming that the composition does not change, the weights of waste generated daily by the restaurants on the islands according to categories are as presented in Table 2. At this amount, the potential for composting is high since the total projected organic waste plus yard waste is about 2000 kg/day. With the estimated compacted density of organic and yard waste at the landfill is about 450kg/m 3, the potential landfill space to be saved by diverting this waste to a composting facility is calculated to be about 4.5 m 3 daily. In addition, there will also be some saving of the landfill space through recycling of waste in the form of paper, cans, plastics and glass. Thus, the amount of landfill saving can be significant if we take into consideration the fact that the resorts operate about three hundred days annually and the amount of space available for landfilling is ever shrinking. There will also be significant fuel savings not having to ferry the wastes to the mainland for landfilling, provided that 8

9 composting is done right there on the island. In addition to that, compost from the composting program would also be beneficial as soil conditioner. Solid Wastes Purata Berat (kg/day) (Kg) y = x R 2 = No. Bil. of Meja tables Figure 3: Daily solid waste generation vs. number of tables in the restaurant Table 2: Projected Total Daily Wastes According to Waste Category Waste Category Total Projected Wastes (kg/day) Organic waste (food wastes) Paper Timber Cans Plastics (Bottles/bags) Glass Yard Wastes The second part of the study looked at the willingness of the waste generators to cooperate in a hypothetical composting and recycling program. Three questions were put forward to the operators of the sampled restaurants; 1) whether or not they are willing to separate their kitchen waste at the source, 2) whether or not they are willing to provide separate recycling bins in the resort rooms, and 3) whether or not they are willing to pay fees to ensure the success of a hypothetical recycling and composting program. Encouragingly all of the ten restaurant operators surveyed answered all of the three questions positively. Meaning that all of them are willing to participate in the program and even willing to pay fees to ensure its success. Since detailed data on the cost of the program were not available at the time, no specific 9

10 amount of the fees were specified in the questions. Their willingness may however be influenced by the difference between how much they are paying now to get rid of their solid wastes and how much they would have to pay for the hypothetical program. Meanwhile, of the total one hundred and twenty tourists randomly surveyed concerning the current solid waste management on the island and their willingness to help improve the situation, 75% (87 tourists) were foreign nationals while the rest are locals. Their assessment of the current solid waste management on the island was not at all favourable where 62% of the opinion that the it was not conducted in the environmental-friendly way while another 4% indicated that the it was totally out of control. Among the complaints were the ubiquitous black plastic bags on pontoons in the middle of the sea that sometimes did not get collected for days, the smells coming from these bags when the wind blew their way, the litters strewn on the beach and the open burning of waste behind the resorts or right there by the beach. Interestingly, there were 17% of these tourists who thought that the waste was properly managed. Unsurprisingly, 92% (110 samples) thought that the composting and recycling programs were a good idea and they were all for it. Majority of these were foreign tourists. Only 8% (10 samples) were indifferent to the idea and majority of them were local tourists. When asked whether they would be willing to support the program by doing their bit in recycling and sorting of wastes, the number of tourists willing to do it dropped slightly to 75% (90) while 20% (24) said the were willing to do it only if the resorts asked them to and the other 5% (6) said they were not willing to do it. Almost all of the 6 samples were local tourists while majority of the 90 samples who readily agreed to the idea were foreigners. 7.0 CONCLUSIONS The whole package of the study covers all the necessary steps required to determine the feasibility of running a more sustainable solid waste management on the island involving a composting and recycling program. What has been discussed here is only the preliminary steps of establishing the availability of enough compostable wastes and recyclables for the program and of gauging the willingness of the stakeholders to participate. Designing the program itself including locating a suitable composting site on the island will be carried out in the next package. 10

11 The results of the study so far has confirmed the feasibility of carrying out the program on the island. Availability of sufficient organic waste, strong support from the waste generators and high awareness among the tourists are three indicators revealed in this study that may make the composting and recycling program successful. That much waste coming from a small number of generators (the resort restaurants) makes it easy for management as opposed to the situation in the case of municipal waste involving thousands of generators. The resort/restaurant operators are all for it realizing the benefits of composting on the environment and the side benefits in the form of green image on their business as well as the soil conditioner that will be cheaply available for landscaping purposes. High awareness on the benefits of recycling among tourists, especially foreigners, and their willingness to source separate their waste is good in convincing the resort operators to provide separate recycling bins in their rooms. The results of the study so far has confirmed the feasibility of carrying out the program on the island. The program would prove to be both more environmentally and economically sustainable. There would be no unnecessary fund-wasting transporting of organic waste to the mainland only to be dumped into the already strained landfill. The would also be no unsightly and smelly bags of waste on fragile pontoons offshore the white sandy beach waiting to be collected, sometimes for days. The composting and recycling program would also be more sustainable than setting up an incinerator on the island, as proposed in the Rancangan Tempatan Daerah Besut (Majlis Daerah Besut, 2006). 8.0 REFERENCES Nazeri Salleh et al. (2002). Physical and Chemical Characteristics of Solid Wastes in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Appropriate Environmental and Solid Waste Management and Technologies for Developing Countries: ISWA World Environment Congress. Vol. 1. pp July 8-12, Istanbul. Turkey Majlis Daerah Besut (2006). Rancangan Tempatan Daerah Besut Ministry of Housing and Local Government (2003). Overview of Solid Waste Management in Malaysia. Paper presented at the Seminar on Solid Waste Management System. December 4, Socio-Economic and Environmental Research Institute (SERI). Penang. Malaysia. 11