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.