Impact of pandemic COVID-19 on solid waste compositional trends in Pasar Awam Maharani Muar.

Abstract

The world was astounded by the emergence of the deadly virus COVID-19 at the end of 2019. In March 2020, Malaysia's first Movement Control Order (MCO) was initiated to stop the spread of the virus that ended in June 2021. Hence, this paper was initiated to study the impact of the pandemic and MCO on the generation of waste in Pasar Awam Maharani Muar (PAMM). The waste generation rate and the trend of waste accumulation according to different categories were recognised. The PAMM operates 8 hours daily, and the area strictly observes Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) established by the government. The compositional study was performed two times for 14 days in a month. The solid waste was segregated, and the weight were measured accordingly. The average total solid waste generated from 30 stalls was around 1.5 tonnes daily. It was further established that 38.5% of the waste comprised of chicken and fish waste, 36.3% formed inorganic waste, and 25.2% constituted vegetable and fruit waste. Several limitations were acknowledged in this research which was the short operational time, unpredictable weather, public holidays, and the closure of PAMM on Sundays. Observations also showed that some stall owners were highly mindful of the solid waste segregation and some of the organic wastes were reused as ruminant feed and some for composting.