www.ccsenet.org/jsd Journal of Sustainable Development Vol. 3, No. 3; September 2010 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 91 Sustainable Development in Malaysia: A Case Study on Household Waste Management Dr. Md. Abdul Jalil Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Economics and Management International Islamic University of Malaysia Tel: 60-1-7380-7293 E-mail: abd_jalil2@yahoo.com; abduljalil@iiu.edu.my Abstract Sustainable development (SD) is a concept which first originated in the 1970s when the developed world undertook massive development project in terms of cutting and clearing forests and constructing high rising buildings and spacious highways. Development of a country is essential to meet the needs of its people and to provide people with the latest infrastructure, high rising buildings and recreation facilities. However, the development process concerns the world community as it affects the natural environment. The ecological balance breaks down and environmental degradation occurs at an alarming rate. Therefore, the world community started thinking about protecting the environment while implementing development activities. Environmental degradation also occurs from intensive industrialization of a country. Therefore, to protect the environment, the world community proposed sustainable development. Sustainable development has three components: economic development; social development; and environmental protection. A sustainable development project requires that in any development project, these three components of SD must be taken into consideration and implemented properly so that the environment is not adversely affected. This paper focuses only on a small aspect of environmental protection, that is, proper management of household waste. This paper discusses how household waste in Malaysia can be converted into vermicompost for use in plantations and agriculture. The production of vermicompost may reduce the amount of organic waste in the country and help to maintain a clean and fresh environment. Vermicompost can also reduce emission of methane gas which causes global warming. Descriptive and analytical research methodology has been applied in this research paper. Keywords: Sustainable development, Economic development, Social development, Environmental protection, Vermicompost, Benefits of vermicompost, Global warming, SWPCM Act 2007 1. Introduction Many countries in the world are involved in development. People are industrializing their countries to produce goods to be sold on the local and international markets. They are undertaking massive development projects to build the latest designs of residential and business buildings, to construct spacious highways, tourist resorts etc. Development is needed to enhance the quality of the lives of citizens in a country. Development projects affect the environment, ecology etc. Therefore, for the past few decades people have been talking about sustainable development. There are three components of sustainable development: economic development, social development and environmental protection. The focus of this paper is on environmental protection. There are many factors that contribute to the degradation of environmental quality. One of the factors that contributes seriously to the degradation of environmental quality is household and industrial waste. For example, household waste emits nitric oxide and methane gas that contribute 20% to the greenhouse effect. Therefore, household waste should be managed in a way which can minimize the emission of dangerous gas such as methane gas which causes global warming and it is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide (Bavani and Phon, 2009). This paper has discussed and analyzed the Malaysian experience of strategic planning for household and supermarket waste management project called vermicompost. The production of vermicompost can effectively minimize the emission of heat-trapping gases and can stop air and water pollution. Vermicompost is an environment friendly organic fertilizer that can be used for plantations, nurseries and in agriculture. Vermicompost can effectively replace chemical fertilizer and can protect healthy environment. It is easy to prepare vermicompost as no machinery is needed. To prepare vermicompost, one needs to collect the organic waste and place it on a piece of land. Then a type of earthworm known as red wiggler is used to decompose the organic waste in medium hot temperature. Within three to four week times the organic waste becomes compost and it is known as vermicompost. As stated above, descriptive and analytical research methodology has been applied in this paper to analyze data obtained from books, journal articles, government working papers and laws on sustainable development, newspapers, and magazines. Secondary data such as three tables, one figure and one model have been collected and analyzed in this paper to describe the amount of organic waste produced in Malaysia everyday and how it can be utilized for the purpose of reducing the amount of solid waste. They have been placed in the Appendix at the end of this paper. One theoretical framework has been included in the Appendix. This framework has been prepared and explained by me. The paper proposes that organic household waste can be used to produce vermicompost which can be used as natural and environment-friendly manure for nurseries, plantations and agriculture.