City plans to build new waste dumping site in Tangerang

JAKARTA (JP): The municipal sanitation office chief has said that the city will have a new waste dumping site in Tangerang, around 25 kilometers west of here.

"With over eight million residents and the rapid growth of the population, the city should have another waste disposal site located in the western part of the city," the office chief, Mochamad Subasir, told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

He said Jakarta produces approximately 6,000 tons or 24,000 cubic meters of waste daily which is dumped at Bantar Gebang, in Bekasi, 35 kilometers east of here.

"Ideally, the city must have two waste disposal locations, one on the east and another on the west," he said.

Subasir said that the future location will cover around 100 hectares of land and the office is now still arranging all the necessary permits with the Tangerang regent .

The disposal location is likely to use the method of sanitary land fill which could minimize the toxic level of the waste. The method has earlier been used in Bantar Gebang.

Subasir said that the existence of the single waste disposal location is not the only problem he faces because lack of garbage trucks and human resources are also burdening the office.

He said that the office has 808 garbage trucks but only 725 are operational.

Subasir said recently that the garbage trucks are able to carry about 19,900 cubic meters, or 83 percent, of the 24,000 cubic meters of garbage the city produces every day.

The rest is managed by private sanitation companies. Subasir said there are 15 companies contracted to help dispose of the garbage.

He said in order to deal with the limited facilities, his office has built some garbage transfer stations in Jakarta.

He said that in the stations the garbage is pressed to reduce its volume in such a way that later only one truck is needed to carry it, instead of eight, to Bantar Gebang.

Presently Jakarta has a few garbage transfer stations. One of them is located in Duri Kosambi, West Jakarta, with the capacity of receiving 2,000 tons of waste every day.

"This year the office plans to build another station in Sunter with the capacity of 1,500 tons of waste every day," he said.

Subasir said in the future his office plans to build transfer stations in every subdistrict.

He said the number of people the office employs full time is 4,962 as of this year.

To overcome the shortage the office hires 762 workers on temporary basis.(03)