City plans to use incinerators to handle waste

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta

The city administration plans to procure four incinerators worth Rp 1 trillion (US$101 million) each to burn a percentage of the 6,000 tons of daily waste produced in the capital, thereby reducing the dependence on Bantar Gebang dump in Bekasi, West Java.

The Bekasi dump, however, would still be maintained as a key disposal area for at least the next ten years.

"We will build four incinerator plants, but they will not replace the Bantar Gebang dump as we would still dispose of some of the city's trash and ash resulting from the incineration for the next 10 years," City Sanitation Agency Head Rama Boedhi told participants of a panel discussion on improvements to the capital's waste management system, organized by Warta Kota daily.

He said Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso has given the green light for the procurement of the costly incinerators.

The first two facilities will be in Duri Kosambi in West Jakarta and Marunda in North Jakarta. The Duri Kosambi plant is expected to be operational next year, while the Marunda facility will be ready within the next 5 years.

The agency has yet to determine the locations for the two other facilities, but they would handle trash from southern and eastern parts of the capital.

Rama reiterated that the presence of the facilities would not adversely affect the environment around the plants, because his agency would not make them "new dumps like the Bantar Gebang dump."

"We won't let mounds of garbage pile up at the plants and cause environmental problems. We will supply the plants with garbage below their incineration capacity of between 500 and 1,500 tons of waste per day," he said.

The Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) researcher Tusy A Adibroto warned the administration on Thursday not to rely solely on the incinerators.

"Given that the operation and maintenance costs of the incinerators are quite high, the administration should also develop other waste treatment technologies, which are well adapted to all types of garbage in the city, either organic or inorganic waste," she said.

Learning from the experience of some developed countries, including Germany and Japan, Tusy said that the trend was a return to common technologies, like composting of the organic waste and recycling of the inorganic materials.

She also warned that the use of incinerators would not be effective, because they could pose dangers to human health and the environment as well emitting toxic substances, which could pollute the air if the administration burns plastic waste as well.

"What we are afraid of is that the administration will fail to properly sort the garbage amid people's ignorance to sort out their own household trash," she said.

She highlighted the paramount importance of public participation in waste management.

The administration has long complained that public contribution in waste treatment is very limited.

Out of the mammoth Rp 400 billion of the agency's operational costs this year, Jakarta residents only contribute Rp 10 billion collected for garbage fees.