Prepared by: Ts. Mohd Fadhzir Ahmad Kamaroddin and Associate Professor Dr. Anwar Johari

RIAU, INDONESIA, 10th August 2021 – The Deputy Director of the Centre of Hydrogen Energy (CHE), Institute of Future Energy (IFE) Associate Professor Dr. Anwar Johari together with fellow researchers from the School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) has held an online meeting with the researchers from the Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Islam Riau (UIR) to explore and plan ahead of the execution of the research collaboration associated to waste management in Riau Province, Indonesia.

Dr. Agus Arsad from the School of Chemical and Energy Engineering, UTM, and Dr. Muslim (Dean, Faculty of Engineering) from UIR Indonesia was the responsible person that coordinated this initiative.

UIR Indonesia was also represented by Faizan Dalilla, ST from the Urban and Regional Planning Study Program while UTM was also accompanied by Associate Professor Dr. Anwar Johari and Associate Professor Dr. Muhammad Abbas Ahmad Zaini, both are experts in waste management technologies.

Dr. Muslim said that Riau Province still using the traditional sanitary landfill system to dispose of their municipal solid waste which requires a large land area that emits smelly odours and leachate that contributed to environmental pollution.

He also expressed that this traditional approach may not be able to cope with the increasing number of populations that generate more waste to be disposed of and looking forward to introducing a more environmentally friendly and sustainable solution for the waste management master plan in Riau Province, Indonesia.

The concept received a positive reaction from UTM members, namely Dr. Agus Arsad, who stated that the UTM Team was extremely supportive of the research activities to be carried out, which serves as a follow-up to the signed MoU.

The UTM team also gave numerous comments relating to the intended research, including that this research should be able to provide input in the creation of the Waste Management Master Plan (WMMP) in Riau Province cities.

Furthermore, Associate Professor Dr. Anwar Johari provides an overview of several waste management systems used in Malaysia and other major cities around the world, such as the use of incinerators to burn waste without causing significant pollution, or centralized waste processing that uses high technology to sort waste based on its material or known as Material Recovery Facility (MRF). The processing products can subsequently be utilized as materials in the recycling sector.

It was agreed at the end of the session to conduct a follow-up meeting as part of this joint research collaboration effort. Furthermore, the Faculty of Engineering team from UIR was requested to begin collecting data and information about the state of waste management in Riau Province. The data will be discussed further in the next meeting, which is scheduled to define the direction and scope of this collaborative project.

Source: http://eng.uir.ac.id/wb/pg/article/news/detail/3224