Tremendous increases in biodegradable (food waste) generation significantly impact the local authorities, who are responsible to manage, treat and dispose of this waste. The process of separation of food waste at its generation source is identified as effective means in reducing the amount food waste sent to landfill and can be reused as feedstock to downstream treatment processes namely composting or anaerobic digestion. However, these efforts will only succeed with positive attitudes and highly participations rate by the public towards the scheme. Thus, the social survey (using questionnaires) to analyse public's view and influencing factors towards participation in source separation of food waste in households based on the theory of planned behaviour technique (TPB) was performed in June and July 2011 among selected staff in Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor. The survey demonstrates that the public has positive intention in participating provided the opportunities, facilities and knowledge on waste separation at source are adequately prepared by the respective local authorities. Furthermore, good moral values and situational factors such as storage convenience and collection times are also encouraged public's involvement and consequently, the participations rate. The findings from this study may provide useful indicator to the waste management authorities in Malaysia in identifying mechanisms for future development and implementation of food waste source separation activities in household programmes and communication campaign which advocate the use of these programmes.

Agricultural waste such as oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) is of environmental concern to Malaysia as one of the world's largest oil palm producers. Pyrolysis can be used to treat biomass waste due to its flexibility in producing solid, liquid and gas products. This study attempts to characterize EFB for pyrolysis using microwaves as an alternative heating source. EFB taken from a local oil palm mill was subjected to fuel, chemical and dielectric property analysis. The findings revealed that high moisture and 47% oxygen gave low calorific value of 16 MJ/kg. Notably, high water content is an advantage in microwave heating as water is a good microwave absorber, which results in fast drying. Further, a high volatile content at 70% gave the EFB an advantage of high reactivity. A moderate potassium content of 12.8% could also positively affect microwave absorption. The dielectric properties of EFB were observed to be proportional to the moisture content. Furthermore, the microwave penetration depth was found highest at 20% moisture, i.e. 3.5 cm. However, low values of both dielectric constant and loss of dried EFBs would require the addition of microwave absorbers for pyrolysis reaction. The fuel and chemical characteristics of EFB were found comparable to other biomasses, which indicated a good candidate for microwave pyrolysis treatment.

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Chemical composition and flocculation efficiency were investigated for a commercially produced tannin - based coagulant and flocculant (Tanfloc). The results of Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDX) confirmed what claimed about the chemical composition of Tanfloc. For moderate polluted municipal wastewater investigated in both jar test and pilot plant, Tanfloc showed high turbidity removal efficiency of approximately 90%, while removal efficiencies of BOD and COD were around 60%. According to floc size distribution, Tanfloc was able to show distinct performance compared to Polyaluminum chloride (PAC). While 90% of flocs produced by Tanfloc were smaller than 144 micron, they were smaller than 96 micron for PAC. Practically, zeta potential measurement showed the cationic nature of Tanfloc and suggested coincidence of charge neutralization and another flocculation mechanism (bridging or patch flocculation). Sludge Volumetric Index (SVI) measurements were in agreement with the numbers found in the literature, and they were less than 160 mL/g. Calcium cation as flocculation aid showed significant improvement of flocculation efficiency compared to other cations. Finally Tanfloc showed competing performance compared to PAC in terms of turbidity, BOD and COD removal, floc size and sludge characteristics.

This paper presents results from a gate-to-gate analysis of the energy balance, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and economic efficiency of biochar production from palm oil empty fruit bunches (EFB). The analysis is based on data obtained from EFB combustion in a slow pyrolysis plant in Selangor, Malaysia. The outputs of the slow pyrolysis plant are biochar, syngas, bio-oil and water vapor. The net energy yield of the biochar produced in the Selangor plant is 11.47 MJ kg−1 EFB. The energy content of the biochar produced is higher than the energy required for producing the biochar, i.e. the energy balance of biochar production is positive. The combustion of EFB using diesel fuel has the largest energy demand of 2.31 MJ kg−1 EFB in the pyrolysis process. Comparatively smaller amounts of energy are required as electricity (0.39 MJ kg−1 EFB) and for transportation of biochar to the warehouse and the field (0.13 MJ kg−1 EFB). The net greenhouse gas emissions of the studied biochar production account for 0.046 kg CO2-equiv. kg−1 EFB yr−1 without considering fertilizer substitution effects and carbon accumulation from biochar in the soil. The studied biochar production is profitable where biochar can be sold for at least 533 US-$ t−1. Potential measures for improvement are discussed, including higher productivity of biochar production, reduced energy consumption and efficient use of the byproducts from the slow pyrolysis.