City signs US$25m deal, still faces garbage crisis

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration signed an agreement with private company PT Interindo Global on Friday for the construction of a garbage processing plant in Duri Kosambi, West Jakarta, worth US$25 million.

However, the plant, whose construction will start next month and be completed next year, will be able to process 1,000 tons of the city's 6,000 tons of garbage per day. There is likely to be a crisis, however, as the city's main dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi, will be closed by the end of this year.

Project manager of PT Interindo Global Richy S. Natapradja said the plant would be fully operational in December next year, processing 1,000 tons of trash per day into solid and liquid fertilizer.

Richy said his company's agreement with the administration was based on a build, operate and transfer arrangement for a period of 12 years.

"The plant will be handed over to the city after 12 years of operation," he told The Jakarta Post after signing the agreement at City Hall.

According to the agreement, PT Interindo Global will invest US$25 million in plant construction while the administration will provide a 4-hectare site in Duri Kosambi.

Richy said the money was from foreign funding, but refused to elaborate on the identity of the funding source, saying it was confidential, as agreed by his company and the administration.

The agreement also obliged the administration, using its garbage trucks, to transport the trash to the processing plant.

Richy said the plant would use Canadian technology to process organic garbage, which accounted for 65 percent of the total garbage, into fertilizer. The remaining 35 percent of nonorganic waste, such as metals and plastic, would be recycled.

The city administration earlier signed several agreements with private companies to process the garbage, but these are still not sufficient to deal with the total 6,000 tons of trash.

An expert has estimated that the city will face a garbage crisis next year as waste treatment facilities will not be ready to handle the amount of garbage currently disposed of at Bantar Gebang dumpsite.

"The garbage problem is likely to become critical as the city does not have sufficient processing facilities, yet there are only a few months left," said Sri Bebassari, a researcher at the Assessment and Application of Technology Board (BPPT) on Friday.

According to Sri, she estimated 10 years ago that a garbage crisis would occur in the city, as resolving garbage problems was never a high priority of the city administration.

The city administration plans to end the use of the 104- hectare Bantar Gebang dumpsite later this year and use two garbage treatment facilities owned by PT Wira Gulfindo Sarana located in Bojong village, Klapanunggal district, Bogor, West Java and at Jl. Cakung Cilincing, East Jakarta.

Unfortunately, the total capacity of the two facilities using German ball press technology will be only around 2,500 tons per day.

The city's decision to stop using the Bantar Gebang dump is due to its dispute with the Bekasi municipality, which often threatened to close the dump due to the environmental damage it allegedly caused.

In December 2001, Bekasi closed Bantar Gebang dumpsite, which meant that tons of garbage were not disposed of and littered the streets.

The crisis ended when the Bekasi municipality reopened the dump after President Megawati Soekarnoputri and State Minister of the Environment Nabiel Makarim intervened in the dispute between Jakarta and Bekasi.