Dwipangga submits proposal for city's waste management

JAKARTA (JP): The municipality has received a new proposal from a private company to recycle the city's waste into compost, an official said yesterday.

Assistant to the city secretary in charge of development affairs, Prawoto S. Danoemihardjo, said the city has not decided anything yet.

"The Governor has requested further evaluation on the proposal," Prawoto said after the presentation of the proposal.

The company, PT Dwipangga Sakti Prima, is controlled by President Soeharto's youngest daughter Siti Utami Endang Adiningsih. The company's president, M. Riza Chalid, declined to comment.

According to the plan, the company would use a substance produced by Cytozyme Laboratories Inc. of the United States to recycle garbage into compost.

PT Dwipangga claimed the substance was non-toxic and environmentally-friendly. It could reduce garbage volume from 40 percent to 60 percent within 90 days. For instance, 84,000 tons of garbage, of which 50,400 tons were organic, could produce 30,240 tons of compost.

For the first 16 days of a compost processing period, the company estimated to spend Rp 2.09 billion, to pay for the substance, water, personnel, pumps, tanks, sprinklers and pipes.

Currently, several community groups produce compost using worms.

Councilor Lukman F. Mokoginta was skeptical about the involvement of a private company in managing the city's garbage. He said it would not solve the city's problem of garbage collection in each residential site.

Lukman, a member of the Commission D in charge of development affairs, said a more urgent measure was necessary to turn the city's Sanitation Agency into a city-owned company.

He said this would give it more authority in managing the city's garbage, including the right to work with private sectors.

"The city should postpone any cooperation before making the agency a city-owned company," Lukman, who chairs the city's Indonesian Democratic Party faction, said.

Jakarta's 8.9 million people produce 25,404 cubic meters of garbage a day, or 9.1 million cubic meters per year. About 73.9 percent of this is organic.

So far the city is only able to collect 21,085 cubic meters of garbage a day.

Garbage is taken to a 108-hectare waste disposal in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi in West Java. Bantar Gebang is able to accommodate 21,000 cubic meters of garbage a day.

PT Dwipangga's management said the compost could be sold for Rp 100 per kilo, which it claimed was much cheaper than the market price of Rp 700 to Rp 1,000 per kilo.

Under the scheme, the company expected to gain Rp 930.4 million in profit.

Earlier a veterans' foundation, the Yayasan Rehabilitasi Prajurit Utama Seroja, also proposed to recycle the city's inorganic garbage into building materials. It said it would work with Canada's Urban Resources Technologies Incorporation.

Surjadi said earlier he would approve any cooperation in waste management, as long as it did not burden the city.

The city is planning to build a 100-hectare dumping area in Ciangir village, Legok district, Tangerang to support the current Bantar Gebang waste disposal operation.

The existing Bantar Gebang's 108-hectare plot landfill opened in 1989. It is projected to be able to take garbage until 2003. (ste)