Municipal Solid Waste Composition Study at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Campus

Municipal solid waste composition studies are essential for proper waste management for a variety of reasons including a need to estimate materials recycling potential, to identify sources, and to facilitate the design of the processing equipment. The composition of generated waste is extremely variable as a consequence of seasonal, geographic, and social impacts. This study is concerning a particular type of municipal solid waste (MSW), which is "tropical campus waste". The study was conducted at the main campus of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). In a period of four weeks, twelve samples were taken and analyzed. The primary objective of the study was to develop a representative estimation of the composition of the universityʹs MSW stream. The daily waste (averagely 5900 kg) was separated into organics (55%), plastics (30%), paper (11%), glass (1%), metals (2%), and rubber, leather and wood (1%).