Disorganized waste management takes its toll, again
Bambang Nurbianto The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Incidents surrounding garbage disposal opened and closed the year 2004.
Residents of Cilincing, North Jakarta, witnessed the death of thousands of fish in their fish ponds following the Jakarta administration's decision to dump its waste in the surrounding area. The decision was made after the Bekasi municipality closed Bantar Gebang, which has served as a sanitary landfill dump for Jakarta's 6,000 tons of daily waste since 1986.
Black liquid from untreated waste seeped into the fish farms, killing the fish that were local residents' main source of income.
The administration eventually closed the dump after the Office of the State Minister for the Environment intervened and confirmed that the surrounding areas had been seriously polluted.
The latest incident occurred on Nov. 22 when police officers fired at thousands of protesters in Bojong village in Bogor regency. The bloody clash sent six residents to hospital to be treated for gunshot wounds while 18 were named suspects for allegedly causing civil disturbance in a trial that started on Dec. 13.
Meanwhile, 14 police officers have been found guilty of acting recklessly to restore order during the incident while two others were declared guilty of violating the Criminal Code, for causing serious injury to others. Six of them, however, were only given administrative sanctions.
The incident was sparked by the trial of the waste treatment facility in Bojong, managed by Jakarta's appointed operator PT Wira Guna Sejahtera. Residents feared that the surrounding area would suffer from environmental damage and their health would be at stake as had happened in Bantar Gebang.
The plant has the capacity to process 2,000 tons of waste daily from Jakarta with an additional 400 tons coming from Bogor. PT Wira Guna Sejahtera claimed it would take at least a month to repair the damage to the Rp 110 billion (US$12.23 million) facility. The incident has cost the company some Rp 8 billion.
Experts have underlined that the city's unprofessional waste management is the cause of the waste crisis, which has recurred since 2001.
"We have only witnessed a minor impact of it (unprofessional management) ... More serious problems will happen if we do not address the problem of managing our waste in a comprehensive way," said Sri Bebassari, a noted solid waste expert with the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT).
Sri has long criticized the administration for its failure to introduce a comprehensive concept in handling garbage although the city has experienced a garbage crisis several times as a consequence of its dependency on Bantar Gebang.
The first crisis was in late 2001, when the Bekasi administration closed the 104-hectare dump due to residents' protests. Garbage piled up on every corner of the city's streets after the closure, inviting platoons of flies and spreading a putrid odor.
The Jakarta and Bekasi administrations then signed a memorandum of understanding in early 2002 to extend the operation of Bantar Gebang. Under its terms, Jakarta was required to pay a Rp 14 billion fee to Bekasi in 2002 and another Rp 8 billion in 2003.
In a bid to reduce its dependency on Bantar Gebang, Sutiyoso's administration assured the public that there would be no more garbage problems this year.
The governor repeatedly expressed optimism that two-thirds of Jakarta's daily waste would be crushed by machines provided by private companies.
He referred to three planned waste treatment plants in Duri Kosambi, West Jakarta; Cilincing, North Jakarta and Bojong. Out of the three, only the plant in Bojong was developed because other investors withdrew their commitment after failing to reach an agreement with the administration.
The withdrawal of investors gave the administration no alternative but to continue using Bantar Gebang. It failed to learn from its past mistakes when it developed the Rp 400 billion incineration plant at Bojong, which finally sparked violent protests from local residents.
Chairman of the City Council Commission D for development affairs, Sayogo Hendrosubroto, argued that incineration plants might not be the right solution.
The commission encouraged the officials to come back with a comprehensive concept on waste management.
"The council considers that a comprehensive solution to the garbage problem must be our priority. Therefore, we will agree to allocate a significant amount of money for waste treatment as long as the City Sanitation Agency can convince us with their next plans," he said.
Sri said there was no immediate solution to the waste problem, but there should be a master plan to start with.
Sri outlined five aspects -- legal, institutional, funding, people's participation and technology -- that should be seriously addressed by the administration in creating a master plan.
First, she said, the city should consider a bylaw on waste management. Second, a new approach should be taken where the sanitation agency would not be the sole institution to deal with garbage.
"There should be coordination between various agencies in an integrated concept of garbage management under the city secretary. We can look to the Japanese government for which waste management involves 15 ministries," she said.
Third, the administration and the council, with the help of a team of experts from various disciplines, should start calculating how much money will be needed to develop waste treatment facilities and how long it would take before the city could afford such projects.
Sri added that any system would not work well if the people's participation was ignored.
She suggested the administration develop a garbage sorting mechanism based on the type of garbage. However, this method will not be successful if residents are not aware or do not feel obliged to separate the garbage before disposing of it.
Sri pointed out that technology to treat garbage, which is the last of the five aspects, must be implemented properly while paying attention to the other four.
She analogized proper waste treatment development to developing a modern international airport in a city.
"If an airport is the main lobby of a hotel, then a waste treatment facility is the toilet. A grand lobby may attract visitors, but when they see how dirty the toilet is, no one will come back," she said.