Mohd Armi Abu Samah

An Overview of the Air Pollution Trend in Klang Valley, Malaysia

The recent air pollution trend, as well as the factors that contribute to the air quality, were reviewed in the Klang Valley since it has undergone rapid development over the years. The overall quality of air in the Klang Valley was moderate for 66% of the days throughout the year of 2009 while only 5% of the days were classified at the unhealthy level. Shah Alam and Kuala Lumpur were among the cities that recorded the highest number of unhealthy days from 2001-2009. Furthermore, places around the Klang Valley suffered from quite severe acidified rain, which indicates that heavy air pollution is still occurringin areas around the Lang Valley. Factors like urbanization, industry, motor vehicles and forest fires remain the main contributors to the deterioration of air quality in the Klang Valley. Hence, a more sustainable policy has to be introduced by the government in order to tackle the air pollution issue.

Determination of Two Different Aeration Time on Food Waste Composting

Increasing volume of organic waste especially food waste due to increased population can affect human and also the environment if it is not managed properly. One of the methods to treat food waste is composting. However, there are many problems regarding composting, for example, time taken to complete the composting process. Thus, the objective for this study is to compare two aeration times used for composting. Methodology for this study started with collecting the food waste, drying and grinding process before starting the composting, and finishing the process in 3 days. Results show that from the two different aeration times, it shows that pH of Compost A (at 34th hour) become neutral faster than Compost B (at 55th hour). There is no significant different for compost temperature between Compost A and Compost B (minimum and maximum). Besides that, total weight reduction for Compost B (45%) is higher compared with Compost A (31%). Even though Compost B is slower to reach pH neutral, it is faster in reduction of total weight. Thus, it can solve the problem especially in increasing volume of food waste.

AN Overview of Radioisotopels Study in Water Pollution

Radioisotopes can be defined as the radioactive isotopes of an element. They refer to the atoms that contain an unstable combination of neutrons and protons. The combination can occur naturally or by altering the atoms. Nowadays, radioactive materials have become major contributing pollutants for a lot of cases of disability and mortality in all over the world. They have become a serious fear of the human, environment, and aquatic organism, although they are exposed to low levels of exposure. Therefore, to overcome these problems, the effective and easier prevention strategies should be taken and encouraged by all related parties such as industries, resi-dents, and government. Radioisotope becomes as an essential part in medical, radiography and other fields of research including the environmental study. One of the applications is they can be used as the indicators in order to identify the pollutant sources. This method can be applied in surface water around industrial area and non-industrial area. As the example, the standard limit concentra-tion of Uranium is 10ppb while for Thorium is 0.50 ppb. The study regarding radioisotope usually uses analytical instruments, for example, Inductively Coupled-Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF). Basically, this paper will give ideas on overview of radioisotope study and reference for acquiring a better quality of surface water in the present and future by us-ing the environmental forensic study application.