Aussie firm interested in compost project

Aussie firm interested in compost project

JAKARTA (JP): An Australian company is likely to process the
huge amount of garbage at the Bantar Gebang dump in Bekasi, east
of here, into marketable compost, a city official said on
Tuesday.

Deputy chief of the Jakarta Recycling Agency, Sugiono
Soewahjo, said the foreign firm, called CASE, has shown interest
in the project since July of this year and has already submitted
a letter of intent concerning the project to the local authority
in Bekasi.

"The company has the technology to excavate the waste and
separate the organic and non-organic waste dumped in Bantar
Gebang, while the Bekasi local authority will provide a site very
close to the dump for the production of compost," Sugiono said.

Jakarta, he stressed, would not have to spend a single penny
on the project but would be temporarily allocated adequate space
for the disposal of its waste.

Bekasi comes under the jurisdiction of the West Java
provincial administration.

According to Sugiono, CASE has a similar project in the South
Sulawesi capital of Makassar.

Bantar Gebang, the city's only dump, is located approximately
40 kilometers east of the capital. The city administration
initially planned to close down the dump and build a new one in
Tangerang following regular complaints from local residents about
foul odors in the vicinity of the dump.

Bantar Gebang, which has the capacity to handle some 12,000
cubic meters of garbage per day, currently receives 20,000 to
30,000 cubic meters per day. The local administration plans to
establish a new dump in Tangerang in 2003.

Sugiono said senior officials from the Bekasi administration
and executives of the company held a meeting with Governor
Sutiyoso about the project recently.

So far, he added, the three parties had yet to decide on a
detailed time frame for the recycling project.

When asked separately on Tuesday, Sutiyoso explained that the
project had attracted the interest of many foreign companies, but
he had yet to receive any reports on the realization of the
project in the immediate future.

"Many parties have come to us and stated their willingness to
take on the project. But I haven't heard about anything firm so
far, or maybe they just forgot to send a report to me," he told
reporters.

But, the governor added, he had no objection at all to any
firms willing to take part in waste recycling.

"I'll fully support it as long as the city administration
doesn't have to spend any money out of our budget and the garbage
problem can be resolved," he added.

Earlier on Monday, City Sanitation Agency chief Saksono
Soehodo said that Jakarta currently produces 60,000 tons of
garbage per day, 65 percent of it in the form of organic waste.

Judging from the type of the garbage, it would be quite
feasible to produce compost from the Bantar Gebang waste, Saksono
said. (dja)