City to build new waste dump site

The city administration plans a new waste dump on a 100- hectare plot of land in Tangerang, a suburb 25 kilometers west of Jakarta.

"We are still negotiating with the regency administration about the project," said Mochamad Subasir, the head of the City Sanitation Office.

"Ideally a city with an eight million population must have two waste disposal locations, one on the east and another on the west of town," Subasir said yesterday.

At present, Jakarta has only one waste disposal site at Bantar Gebang, Bekasi, an area 30 kilometers east of the city.

Jakarta produces approximately 6,000 tons or 24,000 cubic meters of waste daily.

"We anticipate that this site will, in a few years, be unable to accommodate all the city's garbage due to the rapid growth of the city's population which now has reached over 8.5 million people, he said.

Hence, it is necessary to build another site on the western part of the city, he added.

Subasir would not disclose the precise location of the new waste disposal site, but sources of the Tangerang regency administration said the project would probably be built in Legok subdistrict.

Subasir also declined to say how much the waste disposal project will cost and how its construction will be financed.

"It is too early to comment on that because we are still negotiating. If the deal is clinched, then we can propose the construction's costs to the governor," Subasir said. (arf)