Biotechnology and Waste - Environmental Biotechnology: Theory and Application - page 209

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CaseStudy8.1 CompostingforMethaneAvoidance(Telipok,Malaysia)
Composting the putrescible component of MSW has found favour in many coun-
tries as a means to reduce both the amount of material entering landfills and
simultaneously deal with the problem of methane production. The Kota Kinabalu
Composting Project - the first of its kind inMalaysia - provides an excellent example
of this approach.
The operation occupies about 7 ha (18 acres) of land, lying entirely within
the boundaries of the operational Kayu Madang sanitary landfill, near the town
of Telipok some 30 km to the northeast of the city of Kota Kinabalu and 2 km
inland from the South China Sea. Receiving an up-front 500 tonnes/day of resi-
dential and commercial MSW from Kota Kinabalu and the neighbouring districts
of Kota Belud, Tuaran and Penampang, on-site separation within the purpose-
built plant subsequently yields around 300 tonnes/day of biodegradable waste
for composting. The mixed waste is delivered to the plant by collection vehi-
cles and bulk items are then removed from the processing stream by hand.
The material is then transferred by front-end loaders to the new sorting facility,
where the recyclable components, principally plastics, glass, metals and paper, are
extracted by a combination of mechanical systems and manual picking to produce
a default organic feedstock which is then arranged in windrows. After composting,
the product is screened, any remaining inerts being removed for disposal at the
adjacent landfill.
SMART Recycling, the plant's operators, anticipate the production of 45 000
tonnes/year of compost for use as a soil conditioner, along with an estimated
greenhouse gas reduction of around 740 000 tonnes of CO 2 equivalent over its
10-year lifespan from 2009 to 2019. This aspect is of particular significance to
the economics of the project. Capital expenditure and running costs are always a
factor in composting operations, typically depending on the revenue generated by
gate fees and product sales to make them commercially viable. Implementing the
scheme in a country which has no existing established market for the compost and
where no gate fees are to be paid would have been impossible without the emission
reduction purchase agreement between the World Bank's Carbon Fund for Europe
and the operators for the purchase of 340 000 tonnes of CO 2 -equivalent of Certified
Emissions Reductions up to the end of 2014.