Chinese firm to process city's waste, sell to PLN
Chinese firm to process city's waste, sell to PLN
Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
In an attempt to handle its garbage, the city administration
signed on Wednesday a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a
Chinese firm and state electricity company PLN to use garbage to
produce electricity.
Under the US$37 million MOU, the Chinese firm, the Hangzhou
Jijian Group, will construct and operate a power plant that will
use coal mixed with garbage and sell its power to PLN.
The city administration will supply 1,000 tons of garbage per
day to the power plant to generate 30 megawatts of electricity.
Governor Sutiyoso signed the MOU with PLN's director of
marketing and distribution, Tunggono, and president of the
Chinese company, Dou Zhenggang, at City Hall.
To date, the city has signed four other MOUs on managing the
city's garbage, but none of them have been realized so far. MOUs
have been signed with PT Bio Fertilizer Indonesia, which uses
Canadian technology, and PT Interindo Global, which uses American
technology, to produce ethyl-alcohol and raw plastic.
The third MOU was on sending packaged garbage to Bangka-
Belitung province and the fourth was on using a landfill in
Jonggol, West Java.
The head of the Jakarta Development Planning Board, Ritola
Tasmaya, denied that the MOUs had proved to be ineffective as all
of them were in the feasibility study phase.
"We cannot apply an MOU just like that as we need to do
assessments such as an environmental impact analysis and other
research."
"If all MOUs were feasible, there would be no problem with the
closure of Bantar Gebang dump next year as each MOU would have
the capacity to take about 1,000 tons of garbage a day."
He said that the fifth MOU could be realized soon because the
Chinese firm, owned by the Hangzhou provincial administration,
had constructed and operated similar plants in China.
"PLN has sent a team to China to inspect existing power plants
so I think we must take this opportunity, especially since the
Chinese company is willing to invest here," he told The Jakarta
Post.
"No risk at all is being borne by the city administration as
we will only supply a fixed amount of garbage to the power
plant."
Jakarta produces 6,400 tons of waste each day and its contract
to use the Bantar Gebang dump in Bekasi will expire in 2003.
Although there is no financial risk in the project, the city
administration will have to pay a dumping fee of $3 per ton of
garbage, which totals about $90,000 a month or more than $1
million a year.
Despite the huge dumping fee, Ritola claimed it was much
cheaper than present waste management costs.
The city administration paid Rp 8.5 billion ($965,000) in
compensation to the Bekasi administration this year. Last year,
it paid Rp 2.5 billion.
Jakarta also agreed to build facilities in the Bantar Gebang
area such a hospital and water treatment plant that could amount
to tens of billion rupiah.
In a separate development, City Sanitation Agency head
Selamet Limbong said a three-month trial period of an
experimental incinerator in Danau Sunter, North Jakarta, would
begin soon.
"We want to start it by the end of this month or in the first
week of September at the latest," he said.
"The incinerator will be operated by PT Mitra Setia Sejati,
which uses Korean technology with an initial capacity of 60 tons
of garbage per day.
"We will increase the capacity to about 900 tons a day if the
pilot project goes smoothly," he added.
In contrast to the Chinese technology, the Korean technology
needs a trial run prior to full-scale operation.
"The smaller capacity is necessary to evaluate Jakarta's
garbage type which may differ from Korea's type of garbage.
"We may have to make necessary adjustments to the incinerator
if there is any difference in waste type," said Limbong.