2,000 cubic meters garbage a day uncollected: Official

JAKARTA (JP): About 2,000 cubic meters of a total 25,000 cubic meters of the city's household garbage can not be transported to the city's garbage dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi, due to lack of garbage trucks, an official said on Tuesday.

"The trash is left untransported, some is dumped in rivers (by residents)," the city's sanitary agency deputy chairman, P.J. Sugiono Soewahjo, told reporters.

Sugiono said the city should have about 1,300 trucks in order to be able to transport all garbage to Bantar Gebang. Currently, only 900 trucks transport trash every day.

He said about 700 trucks belong to the city administration while the remaining 200 trucks are privately owned.

To reach the ideal number, the city would need Rp 75 billion (US$5 million) to buy 300 more trucks as a truck costs Rp 250 million, he said.

Besides, Sugiono admitted that some trucks belonging to the agency could not operate as they were not well maintained.

"I don't know the number but some are damaged because we don't maintain them well, which includes not cleaning the trucks (properly)," he said.

He said that it was virtually impossible to manually clean all the trucks after they unload trash. A truck-sized car wash would be needed.

He said the agency only has such a machine in Sunter though the city should have at least six of them.

"Normally the trucks leave the garbage dump dirty and unwashed or we just pour water over them. All of them should be cleaned thoroughly by a machine before being used the following morning," he said.

However, he argued that providing such car-washes would require enormous financial investment and it unfortunately could not be provided in the near future.

He said the city administration targeted to secure sanitary retribution of Rp 11 billion in the 2001 City Budget while last year it secured about Rp 10 billion.

The administration has conducted an improvement program in waste management aided by a 3.3 billion Japanese yen loan from the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF), Sugiono said.

He said not all the 3.3 billion yen (or Rp 60 billion with a conversion rate of Rp 20 for one yen at that time) were used to finance the program.

"Some of them, such as contingency funds (which reached 1 billion yen), had not yet been used," he claimed.

He denied any irregularities in the program, saying that it was tightly monitored by Japanese consultants.

He said the loan, which should be repaid in 40 years, would be returned using city budgets in the future. (jun)