A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Engineering

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1993

Information of quantity and composition of solid waste generated by a city is important in the solid waste management system. In this study, the solid waste generation rates of residential, commercial, institutional sources and Kuala Lumpur City were estimated. Also, the physical compositions of the above sources were analyzed to evaluate the characteristic of the wastes from each source. Field survey, laboratory analysis and data collection were included in this study. The waste generation rates of residential area were: 0.67, 0.65 and 0.45 kg/capita/day in high, medium and low socio-economic strata. For commercial area, 17.3 kg/stall/day (4.61 kg/m/day) was estimated from wet market and 8.7 to 13.1 kg/shop/day (0.10 to 0.15 kg/m2/day) for shopping complex. Also, 0.8 kg/bed/day from hospital and 0.6 kg/student/day from the boarding school. In estimation of waste generation rate for Kuala Lumpur City, 1912.5 ton/day and 1.55 kg/capita/day were obtained in this study. As the waste stream (in wet weight basis) for each sampling source, garbage was the highest in residential area while paper was highest in commercial and institutional areas. From dry weight analysis, paper was the highest component in all sampling sources. For Kuala Lumpur, garbage was 32.5%, paper was 28.4%, plastic was 17.7% and textile was 9.5%. In dry weight analysis, garbage was 20.3%, paper was 31.2% and textile was 9.3%. The moisture content and bulk density were 42.0% and 237.1 kg/m3 respectively. The results of the survey were compared with some relevant previous studies. Based on the past data, the present survey results and the background data of the city, the affecting factors for the waste generation rate and characteristics of Kuala Lumpur were population and economic situation. The comparison had shown the trend of increase in packaging material.