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Rice is a special crop that requires a thin layer of water to produce, and is produced differently from other crops. The rice sectors in Malaysia continue to be developed in a proactive and progressive manner. Due to its growth process, rice has a different water footprint (WF) compared to other crops. This study improved the calculation of the blue and green WF of rice production and examined the variations of these footprints under the primary granary area of Malaysia. The effects of climate change will, however, make it more difficult to achieve food security and increase rice yields in the future. Therefore, this paper aims to discuss climate change impacts on rice production and food security in Malaysia. Many countries worldwide are becoming increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters due to climate change. Many climate models predict a decline in agricultural productivity due to excessive heat in tropical and subtropical regions, especially in Southeast Asia. Malaysia is no exception. Therefore, the present study examined the impact of climate change on rice yields in Muda Granary, Malaysia. Utilizing literature reviews, we assessed the value of evapotranspiration (ET) in order to calculate the green WF for the area. Climate variables (such as ET), yield, and variance of impact during the main season and off-season were the primary objectives of the study. Precipitation did not show a statistically significant difference between the main and off-seasons from 2011-2015. During the main crop season, the maximum ET was negatively associated with yield, but the minimum ET showed a positive association. In the off-season, green WF levels were higher than those in the main season. These findings indicate that climate change poses a serious threat to rice production, which will in turn affect food security as they are highly interconnected. Thus, it is high time for Malaysia to revamp its paddy and rice intervention strategies by giving due attention to enhancing the adaptive capacity of rice farmers to cope with climate change.

Oil palm cultivation in Malaysia is known to be labour-intensive. Human rights issues primarily related to workers have always been contentious. This study performed social life cycle impact assessment using one of the type 1 impact assessment methods called Subcategory Assessment Method (SAM). It aimed to evaluate the social performance of some palm oil companies and identify the social hotspots of workers in crude palm oil production starting from nursery, plantation to palm oil mill, and test the applicability of SAM. The basic requirements of SAM were guided to classify the performance reference points, which were used as the threshold where the social inventory indicators were developed to collect the data. A qualitative research approach was used to acquire a better understanding of the issue highlights. Five companies located in Peninsular Malaysia were chosen in this study. The required data were collected via face-to-face interview with the workers and company representatives. The data analysis via SAM was found able to assess the social performance, and identify the social hotspots. The results obtained indicated that all companies involved were similar as the same laws and regulations were adhered to. The subcategory of working hours was found as the social hotspot requiring further improvement. The findings of this study become useful to serve as a guideline in mapping the social hotspots for workers in the palm oil supply chain, and in formulating effective strategies to overcome the resulted social impacts. However, further studies are required to fill the gaps that have not been solved in this study. These include more participation from other companies and inclusion of other stakeholders to explore and assess the industry's social performance more holistically.

Many advanced technologies have shown encouraging results in removing antibiotics from domestic wastewater. However, as activated sludge treatment is the most common sewage treatment system employed worldwide, improving its effect on antibiotic removal would be more desirable. Understanding the removal mechanisms, kinetics and factors that affect antibiotic removal in the activated sludge process is important as it would allow us to improve the treatment performance. Although these have been discussed in various literature covering different types of antibiotics and wastewater, a specific review on antibiotics and domestic wastewater is clearly missing. This review paper collates, discusses and analyses the removal of antibiotics from sewage in the activated sludge process along with the removal mechanisms and kinetics. The antibiotics are categorised into six classes: β-lactam, dihydrofolate reductase inhibitor, fluoroquinolone, macrolide, sulfonamides and tetracycline. Furthermore, the factors affecting the system performance with regard to antibiotic removal are examined.

The use of composting technologies to treat food waste (FW) now represents an environmentally friendly form of waste treatment, in which organic matter can decompose biologically. However, the damaging emissions of composting technologies for FW treatment vary, thus a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach is often used to certify the quality of the decision-making process. This study quantifies and compares the environmental impact of two scenarios in Malaysia: windrow and hybrid composting (windrow integrated with a landfill) technologies. The scenario modeling was performed via GaBi v6.0 software using 1 ton of pre-treated FW as a functional unit, with the analysis based on the ReCiPe (H) v1.07 characterization method. The midpoint results revealed that windrow composting technology has a lower environmental impact and is an environmentally friendly option compared to hybrid technology. Treating FW in a windrow scenario has relatively low power requirements for operation with the added advantageous properties of compost production, and a substantial reduction in the distances transferred by the road. The hybrid scenario had the largest negative environmental impact in all categories, such as climate change (1.45E+03 kg CO2 eq), and ozone depletion (4.39E-09kg CFC-11 eq) because of the energy-intensive waste collection and treatment activities it needs, and with no landfill gas filtration. Finally, based on the single score synthesis, windrow is considered as an appropriate treatment with the avoidance of Resource Depletion (6.61E+02 Pt).

This review is intended to address the issues of unsafe disposal of antibiotics from various sources to the environment, its incomplete degradation, the resulting antibiotic resistance properties on microorganisms exposed to these antibiotics as well as some currently available techniques to remove both the antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARBs) and antibiotic-resistant genes (ARGs) from water and wastewater systems. There is a linear correlation between the concentration of antibiotics in wastewater and the emergence of ARBs and the presence of ARGs. Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) remains as one of the primary sources for ARB and ARG, even though the occurrence of ARBs and ARGs has also been reported in environment with no anthropogenic impact. Conventional removal techniques are available together with newer approaches that promises higher ARBs and ARGs removal efficiencies. Use of bioinformatic tools such as plasmidome is important to ensure sufficient information on ARGs, which may be directly mobilized and transferred to pathogens, can be obtained and analyzed. This review highlights the effects of continuous exposure to ARBs and ARGs present in the environment, notably wastewater, to human health. Various sources of antibiotics, classes of ARBs, and types of ARGs are adequately covered including highlights on recent reports from different countries. Conventional and newer approaches to remove ARBs and ARGs from wastewater were also elaborated to further assist reader’s understanding on the subject matter discussed.

Antibiotics are widely used in human society and are consequently found in sewage treatment plants. However, information regarding the fate of antibiotics in decentralised sewage treatment plants is limited. Therefore, this study monitored and compared four frequently prescribed antibiotics (ampicillin, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin and sulfamethoxazole) in each stage of four conventional treatment plants (three extended aerations and one conventional activated sludge) and two decentralised treatment plants (two Imhoff tanks) in Johor Bahru district between December 2018 and August 2019. The findings revealed that ampicillin, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin and sulfamethoxazole were detected in most wastewater samples, including influent, secondary effluent, final effluent and sewage sludge samples. The antibiotic concentrations in the aqueous and sludge phases ranged from 4.2 to 2690 ng/l and 1.7 to 317.4 ng/g, respectively. Ampicillin and sulfamethoxazole were effectively removed by extended aeration and conventional activated sludge plants (> 75% reduction), erythromycin was effectively removed in IT plants (> 85% reduction) and ciprofloxacin could not be removed effectively by any systems (

The integrated models specifically designed to help decision-making in food waste (FW) composting management through the analysis of previous research studies are reviewed. The integrated models are built predominantly within three decision-supporting tools, which include life-cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle costing (LCC), and multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM). Different integrated models were discussed and their strengths, limitations, and crucial problems as well as their potential integration were evaluated. Apparently, there has been no in-depth analysis of its approaches and potentialities of combining harmonically the LCA, LCC, and MCDM analysis tools in the FW composting management which taking into consideration multiple stakeholders. Thus, the combined LCA, LCC and MCDM with cluster analysis (CA) is suggested. The concepts underlying the sustainable FW composting management model can be divided into several aspects in terms of environmental friendliness, financial profitability, and social acceptance. This gives an insight and facilitates to waste management sectors to decide on a preferable FW composting management.

Membrane bioreactors (MBR) have gained much attention due to their ability to achieve higher treatment efficiency. However, high external energy consumption in aeration for membrane fouling mitigation has been limiting their application. Microbial fuel cells (MFC) can ideally extract energy from wastewater in the form of electricity and reduce membrane fouling. Thus, the use of MFC-MBR is rapidly expanding. However, the MFC-MBR design and operation is not fully mature and further research is needed to optimize the process efficiency and enhance the applicability. This review gives an overview of recent studies on the performances of MFC-MBR systems, regarding the design and configuration of the integrated system, irrespective of whether optimization was done or not in the operating system.

This paper appraised divergent chemical depolymerization routes for reprocessing chemically synthesis polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics bottle waste and offer resolutions to control the environmental complications emanating attributable to its utilize and disposal to the habitat. The consciousness to prune environs contaminants and make it “green” demand for the reclaim and reprocessing it back to PET bottles, precursor products like glycolyzate, and other inventions such as unsaturated polyester resins, epoxy resins, composites etc. Controlling this necessitates assorted reprocessing methods of which chemical recycling that transform PET into monomer/oligomer is the most prosperous one. This review explored in detail current events in the PET chemical recycling using glycolysis method. The study was based on their current evolution concerning their depolymerization agents, reaction conditions, kinetics of reactions, catalysts used, products of reprocessing, and their prospective use. Benefits of PET recycling and glycolysis as well as criteria and necessitation factors that used to adjudge them as the best method and sub-method respectively were highlighted. The prospect for the conversion of glycolyzate into other PET recycling methods products were shown. PET recycling was concluded to be a partial resolution to wastes management, and also grants the conservation of natural petrochemical resources and energy.

The objective of the review is to explore the various operational conditions and conceptual approaches regarding the life cycle assessment (LCA) of the different composting technologies through the analysis of previous research journals and reports relating to food waste (FW). Many types of research concentrate on waste generation and proportions analysis of certain composting techniques, however less LCA on decision-making approaches for FW composting through aerobic or anaerobic management, or not a mixture of these has been conducted. Therefore, gaps in the availability of literature and decision-making frameworks indicate that systematic LCA approaches to different composting systems are needed as a biological technology for the treatment of organic waste. The environmental effect should also be evaluated in terms of the input feedstock and operating modes to produce the basis with reduced variations between the studies. Furthermore, particular methodological issues exist in the investigation of LCA composting systems, such as the concept of a functional unit, the database used, the variation of life cycle impact assessment methodologies, and the coverage of the impacts. Therefore, the review and its analyses offer valuable context for explaining the operational dimensions of LCA to prevent misconceptions due to the varying complexity of composting LCA's within analysis by offering methodological guidelines for alleviating the related uncertainties.

River systems in developing and emerging countries are often fragmented relative to land and waste management in their catchment. The impact of inconsistent waste management and releases is a major challenge in water quality management. To examine how anthropogenic activities and estuarine effects impact water quality, we characterised water conditions, in-situ microbiomes, profiles of faecal pollution indicator, pathogenic and antibiotic resistant bacteria in the River Melayu, Southern Malaysia. Overall, upstream sampling locations were distinguished from those closer to the coastline by physicochemical parameters and bacterial communities. The abundances of bacterial DNA, total E. coli marker genes, culturable bacteria as well as antibiotic resistance ESBL-producing bacteria were elevated at upstream sampling locations especially near discharge of a wastewater oxidation pond. Furthermore, 85.7% of E. faecalis was multidrug-resistant (MDR), whereas 100% of E. cloacae, E. coli, K. pneumoniae were MDR. Overall, this work demonstrates how pollution in river estuaries does not monotonically change from inland towards the coast but varies according to local waste releases and tidal mixing. We also show that surrogate markers, such dissolved oxygen, Bacteroides and Prevotella abundances, and the rodA qPCR assay for total E. coli, can identify locations on a river that deserve immediate attention to mitigate AMR spread through improved waste management.

Haze pollution is one of the major environmental issues caused by aerosols, having brought about a history of heavy smog pollution events like the London smog in 1952 and the Los Angeles smog in the 1960s. However, in Malaysia, haze events are attributed to forest and peat fires in Kalimantan and Southern Sumatra, Indonesia. The burned biomass basically contains concentrated particulate matters that are hazardous to health among susceptible population groups. Based on the extensive literature review conducted, the small number of available local studies on the health effects of air pollution in Malaysia conducted so far focused on air pollution sciences. In this paper, a comprehensive overview of studies done on the impacts of haze on health conditions among populations in Malaysia is presented. The result shows that the number of upper respiratory tract infection cases was directly proportional to the particulate matter concentration and Air Pollution Index value in Johor in the years 2014 and 2015. Particulate matteris the major contributor in the formation of heavy hazes and is more likely to initiate detrimental health effects compared to other inhalable particles due to their size, large area, and strong activity, making them more likely to carry harmful substances causing a higher number of infected patients with upper respiratory tract infections.

Wastewater treatment systems have been designed to minimize the environmental impacts of discharging untreated wastewater in natural aquatic systems. Different wastewater treatment options have different performance characteristics and different direct impacts to the environment. The main aim of this study is to assess and quantify the environmental impacts of an electroless nickel plating wastewater treatment plant in Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia. A life cycle assessment method, based on the international organization for standardization 14040 series framework, was used to assess the environmental impacts of the selected wastewater treatment plant. The ReCiPe life cycle impact assessment method attached to GaBi 4 software was used to assess the environmental impact of the selected industrial wastewater treatment plant. The results show that the existing chemical treatment process had the highest environmental impacts in terms of climate change with 1552.89 kg of CO2 and terrestrial acidification of 5.79 kg SO2 equivalent compared to the physical and biological treatment processes. Hence, two different scenarios, one utilizing chitosan and the other wet air oxidation (WAO) process, were formulated to reduce the environmental impacts of the conventional chemical wastewater treatment process. The impacts on the climate change using chitosan and WAO scenarios were both seen to have less than 110 kg CO2-equivalent emissions compared to the existing chemical process.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an analytical tool used to quantify the overall environmental impacts associated with products, processes or human activities from cradle to grave. The LCA is important to determine the impact of wastewater treatment and the technologies used on human health and the environment. It performs well to find the best solutions to improve the sustainability. Therefore, it is important to review how previous studies on wastewater treatment have applied LCA. This paper presents a wide-ranging review of papers published from 1990 to 2016 that have used a range of LCA to cover the objectives, boundaries, functional units (FUs) and life cycle impact assessment(LCIA) of wastewater treatment. The analysis of the reviewed papers revealed that there are some differences in term of the FUs, system boundaries, and LCIA methods. These differences normally contribute to obtaining a few non-prosaic results. Moreover, the FUs adopted in some reviewed studies were not able to achieve the purpose of providing a reference to ensure compatibility of the results. Therefore, it is highly recommended that more attention is paid to choosing the FU in future studies. Thus, to ensure the quality and comparability of LCAs, it is very important to develop the LCA guidelines and standards and the LCIA impact categories.

The world is experiencing high rates of urbanisation and it has slowly become an alarming social process, especially in developing countries. This has demanded an urgent investigation on human thermal comfort, especially in tropical climates. In this study, a surrogate human sensor (SHS) was developed to establish a linkage between human skin surface and SHS with the surrounding environments. Black plastic corrugated cardboard was used in the SHS fabrication as its thermal conductivity was close to the thermal conductivity and emissivity of the human epidermal skin layer. The SHS was designed to correlate with human skin surface temperature and a regression model was developed. The regression equation was obtained for the human skin temperature prediction (Th) by using SHS. Statistical analysis of the ANOVA (F = 13,700; ρ

The increased use of freshwater for domestic, industrial and agricultural activities has rapidly led to the scarcity of global water supplies with agricultural industry being the main consumer of fresh water, accounting to approximately 85% of the global freshwater consumption. Palm oil is the biggest and fastest growing vegetable oil on the world market and oil palm plantations are covering large land areas especially in Indonesia and Malaysia. Several environmental problems related to oil palm plantation have been reported, such as biodiversity loss, land use change, huge water consumption and river pollution. Water footprint analysis has been used to indicate the water consumption of a country, product, services or even an individual. However, methods to assess water usage in crude palm oil plantations is not available to date. Thus, this paper aims to provide a method in calculating water footprint for crude palm oil productions in Malaysia. The most appropriate method was identified based on an extensive literature survey. ISO 14046 was chosen as a guideline because it is an international standard in reporting and assessing water footprint (WF) with LCA approach. This study preferred the use of the comprehensive water footprint assessment compared to the stand-alone assessment because this approach can assess all the potential environmental impact related to water which are associated with a product, process or organization. It is expected that the water degradation level in this plantation can be identified to provide guidelines to the government, plantation companies as well as developers for the development of sustainable palm oil plantation in Malaysia.

Nowadays, there have been various environmental sustainability initiatives implemented by the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) through research, education, community involvement and campus operations. By embedding an effective initiative as well as best practices, environmental sustainability performance of universities can be improved. Realising the benefits of these factors, this book chapter aims at constructively reviewing the university’s environmental sustainability initiatives (ESI) by highlighting underlying issues and necessary improvements. To accomplish this, the ESI of three research universities in Malaysia were reviewed in accordance with UI GreenMetric World University Ranking. Around 36 major initiatives as well as several environmental sustainability courses that have been conducted by all three research universities was categorised using the descriptions and rationales of the six (6) main environmental category in UI GreenMetric which are Setting and Infrastructure, Energy and Climate Change, Waste, Water, Transportation and Education and Research. It can be concluded that the key factors that should be included in the ESI plan are awareness and environmental knowledge, green space and land use management, energy efficiency and water conservation, natural resource limitation, climate change mitigation, waste minimisation, greenhouse gas emissions reduction, environmental education programme and research collaboration as well as environmental sustainability guidelines and policies. These factors can help and guide universities to produce a good and strategic plan in practicing and conducting ESI towards a better future.

The activities related to agri-food production and the disposal of its waste account for a large number of greenhouse gas emissions. In many cases, food waste (FW) management is established by making a single assessment for its sustainability based on economical or environmental impacts. However, social impact assessments on stakeholders are often incomplete or missing, and its efficiency is seldom measured. Decision-making in waste management strategies, such as the acquisition of appropriate waste treatment sites or methods used, frequently involves multiple stakeholders such as government, municipalities, industries, experts, or public sectors. Due to the complication of differing criteria and alternatives in FW management technology, a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methodology is recommended to certify the quality of the decision-making process. This paper reviews the use of MCDM as decision supporting techniques in modelling and analysing decision making in situations with multiple stakeholders for FW management. The synthesis results obtained through the MCDM tool will be more reliable when requesting confirmation from stakeholders based on a recommended minimum range of criteria for each sustainability dimension in the FW issues. Finally, potential studies in this area have been proposed.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is broadly used around the world. The comprehensiveness of the method helps to avoid problem-shifter in reducing environmental impact from anthropogenic activities. In Southeast Asia, some countries have adopted gradually the application of life cycle approach in government action plans and marketing strategies. However, its progress remains unclear due to the lack of investigative studies. The aim of this paper is to provide a review of the current application of LCA framework in Malaysia. The paper also highlights the acceptance of the concept within government sectors and industrial players. The life cycle assessmentLCA progress in Malaysia can be seen from three perspectives: 1) government planning and policy; 2) industry involvement and 3) LCA priorities. This study reviewed the current progress of LCA implementation in Malaysia based on the current literature. In government planning and policy, LCA has been embedded in project development and monitoring through the Carbon Reduction Initiative and National Database Development. However, the progress in industry involvement so far has shown less participation due to low demand towards green products. In moving towards a high-income nation and open economy, the Malaysian government has emphasized on the need for greater inclusiveness where green initiatives were put forward in Malaysia’s development.

Water demands are the most referred indicators for water distribution system operators to regulate production and storage of potable water. Many regional in Southeast Asia are greatly dependent on freshwater resources, which most of the time comes from large rivers basin, with starting point in high mountains and the flowing water which distribute into many parts in particular region for daily activities. Hence, understanding the projection of water demand by the reservoir that are formed by constructing dams across rivers need to be done which can contribute to water demand framework for river basin. Evaluation on consideration and estimation between water withdrawal and water availability can provide the quantity of water loss. This paper presents a review of water demand projection for different reservoir in river basin across Southeast Asia.

Urban Heat Island (UHI) is expected to be a disastrous challenge to human in the following decade as a result of continuous urbanization without appropriate planning and design. The impacts of UHI are even getting worse due to large population density with improper building design especially in dense metropolitan cities. A lot of research has been carried out for UHI phenomenon both in tropical and seasonal climates. There are many factors contributing to the formation of UHI phenomenon that includes increasing rate of urbanization and population density, uncontrollable factors and controllable factors. In a fundamental study, a prolonged exposure to heat impact will significantly contribute to human discomfort and health problems resulting in heat-related illness. The cases of heat related deaths, such as heat strokes, are due to the result of climate changes and further the problem of heat waves will increase year by year. Since the consequences of UHI are considered to be more significant, the severity of the problem should be critically examined and carefully reported. Many research efforts have been implemented for making conceptual design and also a wide range of literature is available for continuing the mitigation strategies. Therefore, this study is emphasized on the critical investigation of the features, factors and impacts of UHI towards evaluating human safety and thermal comfort. Future research direction should also be encompassed on the design and planning parameters as well as assessment of climate change risks and vulnerability for reducing the effects of urban heat island onto human health and safety.

River pollution from the agriculture industry has become an important cause of unscheduled water disruptions in Malaysia. Thus, rigorous control and treatment of high strength wastewater prior to discharge into the river are needed. This study aims at evaluating the performance of a pilot membrane bioreactor (MBR) for the treatment of palm oil mill effluent (POME). POME was subjected to MBR operating in an aerobic environment for 40 days, followed by 10 days without aeration and water pumping to simulate failure event, and finally resumed to operational condition. Higher proportions of protein (-PN) compared to polysaccharides (-PS) were present in both the mixed liquor and biofilm, indicating that protein was the main constituent of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). Biological samples from the mixed liquor and biofilm on the membrane surfaces were collected on day 25, 50 and 75 to investigate taxonomic distribution of microbial community. High throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene was used to investigate the composition of microbial communities in the MBR. Microbial groups such as the phyla Proteobacteria (19–23%), OD1 (11–15%), Chloroflexi (11–13%) were the dominant members in biofilm under operational condition while OD1 (20%), Proteobacteria (18%) and Planctomycetes (16%) were found to be dominant in biofilm under static and non-operational conditions. The taxonomic profile of the microbial community on day 75 is more similar to that of day 25, compared to day 50, suggesting the capability of the microbial communities to revert to the operational state despite a period of downtime.

The global transportation sector is one of the significant fuel consumers and contributes directly to greenhouse gas emissions due to fossil fuel consumption. Diesel blending used to reduce the reliant of fossil diesel in the transportation sector. Thus to reduce the environmental burden of fuel usage, new diesel blending formulations consist of biofuels were developed. The objective of the study is to assess the environmental performance of the five new diesel blending formulations with the existing diesel blending formulation by using Life Cycle Assessment method. In midpoint categories, the conventional B5 diesel blending has shown the lowest environmental impact compared to other fuels in most categories except for marine eutrophication, natural land transformation, ozone depletion, and terrestrial ecotoxicity. In the weighting stage, B5 diesel blending scored the lowest value and followed by blending 5, thus indicating its potential as an alternative to the existing diesel blending formulation. The presence of butanol in the new diesel blending majorly affects the environmental impact for many impact categories.

Building consumes 40% of global energy consumption which contributes for such a majority amount of carbon dioxide emission. Enhancing the energy efficiency strategies in buildings by retrofitting through different approaches is essential for reducing end user on the amount of energy consumption and carbon footprint emission. Previous research shows that only a few studies have been conducted on retrofitting the energy performance on Rest and Service Area yet the result shows that lack of technical feasibility practice was reviewed. Hence, this paper explores the energy efficiency strategy by improving the lighting performance based on 24 hours service building at Rest and Service Area Ayer Keroh Northbound Malaysia. The simulation that was performed in lighting energy consumption was EnergyPLUS software, Autodesk Revit and RELUX Plug in tool in Revit. Preliminary study was conducted to identity the problem on energy performance at Rest and Service Area Ayer Keroh by determine the total energy consumption by sources and Building Energy Intensity [BEI]. The result shows lighting contributes to the most total load consumption due to lack of energy conservation management and energy efficiency strategy practices. The lighting simulation scenarios was created to enhance the energy consumption performance and reduced the irrelevant carbon footprint emission. The simulation in Revit and EnergyPLUS showed 17% and 49% reduction respectively on the end load of lighting energy consumption by reducing the overall time operation and daylight control dimming system.

This study assessed the health risk analysis of haze pollution in Pasir Gudang and Larkin. The relationship between health risk and economic effect due to air pollution exposure in Johor is still poorly understood. Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyse the relationship between air pollution and health. Then, the economic impact due to smoke haze on associated outpatients was calculated. Daily morbidity data from 2014 to 2016 for three haze-related illnesses were collected from two health clinics. Data on air quality were obtained at two Continuous Air Quality Monitoring (CAQM) stations in Johor. Health risks for all age categories in the haze periods were higher than those in non-haze periods. The outpatient morbidity cases in health clinics increased with the rising occurrence of smoke haze in Johor Bahru. The average annual economic losses due to the outpatient health impact of haze were valued at RM83,233 and RM107,486 for Pasir Gudang and Larkin, respectively.

Based on the current generation rate of 1 kg−1 person−1, the production of organic waste in Malaysia is estimated to reach 9 metric tons per year by the year 2020. Components of these wastes, however, can be used to generate biogas, not only to decrease waste-related issues, but also to produce renewable energy. There is a growing interest in resource recovery and waste/energy integration through biogas generation from organic waste through anaerobic digestion method. However, due to the anaerobic digestion process varies in different facilities, thus proactive assessment on the status of biogas production and its effect on the environment through life cycle assessment is vital. The objective of this review is to assess factors that affect environmental performance results such as the system boundaries setting, the databases used and the life cycle impact assessment methods applied. This review underscores the fact that goal definition and scope, functional units, system boundaries setting, characterization and life cycle impact assessment methodology, as well as types of software and databases used influence and affects the life cycle assessment results. It suggests that for future cross study comparisons, all assessment guidelines should be addressed to avoid biased comparisons on climate performance between different alternatives.

The demand for rice in year 2030 is projected to be around 533 million ton of milled rice and known to be a high water consuming crop. In Asia alone, irrigated rice consumes as much as 150 billion m3 of water. With water being the most important component for rice production, yielding more rice with less water is therefore a formidable challenge. The aim of this study is to assess the water footprint of paddy plantation at Muda Rice Granary, Kedah for five consecutive years; 2012 to 2016. By using the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, the potential environmental impacts due to water consumption in planting and processing rice will be assessed. By integrating water footprint with LCA may assist in analysing environmental impacts associated with direct and indirect water consumption throughout the whole process; starting from raw material extraction, processing or production, distribution, use, and disposal. The methodological framework follows the LCA framework; setting up goal and specifying the scope of study, followed by inventory analysis, water footprint sustainability assessment and finally interpretation or response formulation. The research boundary for this study include the growing phase of paddy; seedling and cultivating of the paddy until the rice milling process. By implementing this water footprint research in paddy field, it will be essential not only in research area but also in agricultural development in Malaysia. Consequently, it will become the baseline for other agricultural in Malaysia in this research area.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative methodology for aggregation in a life cycle assessment (LCA). The comprehensive aggregation method is based on a damage approach and done through an analytical hierarchy process. Consistency analysis is also presented to justify the reliability of the judgements and the magnitude of change in the values developed. A case study of electricity generation is applied to demonstrate its applicability in LCA study within a Malaysian context. Results from this case study show that the weighting value is higher compared to global and European values; however, they are consistent as in the case of product ranking towards greener products. Regional impacts such as particulate matter formation and photochemical oxidant formation have higher score compared to global impacts such as climate change. The results show that the method is simple and replicable.

The increasing concerns of water resource are becoming an important issue as severe shortage of water has been seen throughout the world. Though membrane bioreactor (MBR) has made an enormous progress and has become a promising approach in wastewater treatment, there are still several limitations on conventional MBR and thus there emerged integrated MBR for wastewater treatment technology. This paper aims to provide a consolidated review on the current state of research for the integrated MBR system with other technologies for wastewater treatment and help to sustain the treatment process itself. The areas for potential applications of various types of MBR are discussed in this review article. It is expected to provide future prospects to implement integrated MBR as a promising wastewater treatment technology. The valorization of wastewater in integrated MBR would reduce pollution and more importantly open a new source of energy and nutrients. Moreover the integrated MBR makes energy and nutrient recovery to be environmentally and economically feasible.

Extensive use of recalcitrant azo dyes in textile and paper industries poses a direct threat to the environment due to the carcinogenicity of their degradation products. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficiency of Curvularia clavata NZ2 in decolorization of azo dyes. The ability of the fungus to decolorize azo dyes can be evaluated as an important outcome as existing effluent treatment is unable to remove the dyes effectively. C. clavata has the ability to decolorize Reactive Black 5 (RB5), Acid Orange 7 (AO7), and Congo Red azo dyes, utilizing these as sole sources of carbon and nitrogen. Ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy and Fourier infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis of the extracted RB5's metabolites along with desorption tests confirmed that the decolorization process occurred due to degradation and not merely by adsorption. Enzyme activities of extracellular enzymes such as carboxymethylcellulase (CMCase), xylanase, laccase, and manganese peroxidase (MnP) were also detected during the decolorization process. Toxicity expressed as inhibition of germination was reduced significantly in fungal-treated azo dye solution when compared with the control. The cultivation of C. clavata under sequential batch system also recorded a decolorization efficiency of above 90%. The crude enzyme secreted by C. clavata also showed excellent ability to decolorize RB5 solutions with concentrations of 100 ppm (88-92%) and 1000 ppm (70-77%) without redox mediator. This proved that extracellular enzymes produced by C. clavata played a major role in decolorization of RB5.

Rapid urbanization has greatly impacted housing demand and housing development in Iskandar Malaysia, Johor. Iskandar Malaysia vision towards development of a low carbon society and in line with Malaysian government policy promoting industrialized building system (IBS) to meet the increasing housing demand. Hence, a comparative analysis of life cycle analysis (LCA) at assembly phase has been conducted to identify life cycle impact assessment and hotspot for material and construction stage between IBS and conventional cast in situ for residential apartment buildings in Iskandar Malaysia. The purpose is to apply IBS in residential building construction towards greener building and sustainable development. The functional unit of the comparison analyses was one square metre of produced building area for the respective construction period. A comparable inventory analysis will be carried out between two case studies. An input-output flowchart is created for each process to determine the components included in the analysis. Flows of assembly phase will be modelled in Gabi 6.0 software to further interpret the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) between the two construction methods, and to determine the hotspot between the processes. Finally, a sensitivity analysis will be conducted to determine the influence of variations in assumptions, methods and data on the results.

Aerobic granulation is increasingly used in wastewater treatment due to its unique physical properties and microbial functionalities. Granule size defines the physical properties of granules based on biomass accumulation. This study aims to determine the profile of size development under two physicochemical conditions. Two identical bioreactors namely Rnp and Rp were operated under non-phototrophic and phototrophic conditions, respectively. An illustrative scheme was developed to comprehend the mechanism of size development that delineates the granular size throughout the granulation. Observations on granules' size variation have shown that activated sludge revolutionised into the form of aerobic granules through the increase of biomass concentration in bioreactors which also determined the changes of granule size. Both reactors demonstrated that size transformed in a similar trend when tested with and without illumination. Thus, different types of aerobic granules may increase in size in the same way as recommended in the aerobic granule size development scheme.