Councillor urges Jakarta to clean up own garbage
Councillor urges Jakarta to clean up own garbage
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The City Council suggested on Tuesday that the city
administration process its garbage, which amounts to 25,000 cubic
meter per day, by using incinerators and organic fertilizer
technology, in its five mayoralties.
"To avoid disputes with neighboring administrations, we'd
better process our own garbage by ourselves," Councillor Bimo
Hastoro of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle said.
The city administration had earlier planned to use a 100-
hectare plot of land in Ciangir, Tangerang, as a garbage dump.
However, the plan could not be implemented due to the Tangerang
administration's objections to the environmental impact.
Currently, there are only two incinerators here, in Sunter,
North Jakarta, and in Rawasari, Central Jakarta, while organic
fertilizer technology is not used.
As for the land in Ciangir, which was bought by the city
administration three years ago for Rp 56 billion (US$6.2
million), Bimo did not have any better suggestion than proposing
that the city administration use it as an official housing
complex.
"The site, which was bought three years ago, should not be
neglected," Bimo, who is also the secretary of the council's
Commission D for development affairs, told reporters.
Meanwhile, another councillor, Mardjuan Bakri, demanded a
clear explanation from the administration about the cancellation
of its plan to use the Ciangir site as a garbage dump.
"The plan could not have been changed that quickly as it had
been planned over a long period and used public money to buy it,"
Mardjuan of the National Mandate Party said.
He felt that the city administration's decision not to cancel
the plan showed how uncoordinated was the planning of projects in
the administration.
City Sanitary Agency head Saksono Hoesodo said earlier that
the Ciangir land would not be used as a garbage dump due to the
objection by Tangerang council.
The administration had planned to use the site as a
replacement for the city's garbage dump in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi,
which would have been closed in 2003. This followed objections
from Bekasi council about its environmental impact, although it
could actually have been used until 2006.
During the dry season, the Bantar Gebang garbage dump
reportedly produced smoke that blanketed the surrounding areas;
it also reportedly contaminated water and wells in the area.