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.