City, PUSRI to build two garbage plants

City, PUSRI to build two garbage plants

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration and state-owned fertilizer producer PT
Pupuk Sriwijaya (PUSRI) would cooperate to build two garbage
processing plants here with a total investment of Rp 100 billion,
an official said on Tuesday.

Chief of the City Sanitation Agency Selamet Limbong said the
investment funds and technology for the garbage processing plants
would be provided by PUSRI, while the city administration would
provide the land.

"We are currently conducting a study which would need at least
two months (to complete) before developing the plants," Limbong
told reporters before meeting Governor Sutiyoso at City Hall.

Limbong revealed that one of the processing plants would be
located at the city's main garbage dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi,
while the other would most likely be developed at the Tegal Alur
area in West Jakarta.

Meanwhile, PUSRI's president Zaenal Suezais, who accompanied
Limbong at the meeting, said the plants would have a total
processing capacity of 4,000 tons of organic refuse a day.

"The plants would produce 2,000 tons of solid and liquid
fertilizer," Zaenal told reporters before the meeting.

Without mentioning the retail price, he said the fertilizer
would be marketed by PUSRI through its own network.

Each day, Jakarta produces 5,000 tons of organic refuse and
1,500 tons of non-organic garbage.

In December last year, foreign investors from the United
States and Canada, who had signed a memorandum of understanding
to build garbage processing plants, canceled their plan to build
the plants this year due to heightened terrorist threats after
the Oct. 12 Bali bombing.

The Bekasi mayoralty has often threatened to close the garbage
dump because of continuing environmental damages at the Bantar
Gebang dump, which has raised fears in Jakarta of their garbage
spilling out onto streets and other public areas.

An independent team earlier recommended that the dump could
still be used, at least until the end of this year, despite
continuing damage.