A Comprehensive Review of Environmental, Physical and Socio-Economic (EPSE) Criteria for Spatial Site Selection of Landfills in Malaysia

Abstract

Location of municipal solid waste landfills in Malaysia has been attributed to causing bad odour, dust, litter, unattractive neighbourhoods, groundwater contamination, hazardous waste pollution and etc. Therefore, proper selection criteria are very important in preliminary siting of new landfill to avoid undesirable long-term effects. This article presents a comprehensive review of landfill spatial siting criteria and their frequency of occurrence (ranked order) found in literatures. The highest ranked criterion is the surface water and the lowest is climate/rainfall density. The dissimilarity in the criteria is found to be specifically influenced by published guidelines or policies from respective countries. In addition, group ranking of spatial criteria from frequency study made on Malaysian local literatures shows that wind factor and infrastructure (utilities) has never been considered in landfill site selection process here. These factors cannot be ignored because enhancing the condition of social, economic and environmental efficiency is part of promoting sustainable development. Subsequently, a benchmarking process of common environmental, physical and socio-economic (EPSE) criteria made with Malaysian landfill siting guideline; National Strategic Plan for Solid Waste Management and Environmental Impact Assessment Guidelines for Municipal Solid Waste and Sewage Treatment and Disposal Project. The bench mark process is useful for research references and its uniformity provides efficient site selection process in solid waste management.