Garbage: A long story

Garbage: A long story

Seen from the common peoples' point of view, the recent dispute over the use of the Bantar Gebang garbage dump in Bekasi, West Java, is a good sample of idiosyncratic behavior on the parts of both the Bekasi and Jakarta administrations. In the case of the Bekasi administration, the regency's refusal to extend its deal with Jakarta -- giving the latter the right to use a 108-hectare tract of land at Bantar Gebang -- could appropriately be seen as an act of bravery in going against Jakarta, the capital city of the nation. Bekasi, a regency, could be seen as expressing its "sovereign right" in the face of the "oppressor," Jakarta.

Before the euphoria of the reform movement in 1997, it was almost impossible to envision regencies, mayoralties or even provinces with the courage to go against Jakarta, which is practically pegged as the center of power. In such a situation, the Jakarta administration was for 17 years able to use Bantar Gebang as its terminal dumping ground, for the garbage produced by the capital's millions of residents.

However, with the reform movement and the implementation of the law on regional autonomy, new blood seems to have been injected into regencies and mayoralties bordering Jakarta, and demonstrations of their "sovereignty" are beginning to replace the old, docile, bowing to Jakarta's will.

Obviously, for the Jakarta administration, the broken deal over Bantar Gebang with Bekasi came as a big shock. Despite Governor Sutiyoso's claim that the closure of Bantar Gebang made no difference to Jakarta at all, everybody knows, for example, that dozens of garbage trucks were compelled to park on the road to Bantar Gebang for days, only seconds after residents living around the dump protested against the presence of the garbage trucks on the site last week.

Temporary dumps have been set up by the city administration at Rawa Malang, near Cilincing in North Jakarta, as well as at Rorotan and Nagrak in East Jakarta. But they have been of little help as they can handle no more than 5,000 tons of garbage per day. To note, Jakarta's residents produce about 6,000 tons of garbage a day.

In the meantime, more disputes are looming, with waves of protests already being staged by residents living in the vicinity of the Rawa Malang dump. The city administration, which is known for its failure over the years to effectively dispose of the city's garbage due to a lack of garbage trucks, must not take the problem of the disposal of the still-remaining 1,000 tons of garbage lightly.

Political statements do not solve the problem. What the administration must do, is to immediately begin drafting some clearly outlined and workable policies on what to do with Jakarta's garbage in the days and weeks ahead. The Bantar Gebang saga is indication enough of the city administration's ignorance and inability to effectively handle Jakarta's garbage problem.

First of all, though, the city administration must have the courage to acknowledge its own shortcomings in terms of technology and human resources, as well as managerial skills. Therefore, an accommodating attitude is necessary, meaning that the city administration must look to the central government for help in this affair. The central government, after all, has at its disposal the services of the State Ministry of Environment and the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) -- both of which are said to have been the nests of technocrats during Soeharto's tenure as president.

For a megalopolis such as Jakarta, appropriate technology must be applied in garbage handling. The steady increase in the city's population and the customs and habits of its citizens must also be taken into account, before a certain technology or policy is applied. The landfill system used so far does not seem to meet the current demand.

One could also question the central government's interest in the problem of Jakarta's garbage, even though in many respects the interests of the central government and those of Jakarta are either identical or overlap. Thus we could see, for example, that while the Jakarta administration was having a heated argument with the State Ministry of Environment over the reclamation of Jakarta's coastal strip, we have never heard of any fruitful talks about the proper handling of garbage between the two institutions.

In any case, history has clearly shown that the bureaucratic City Sanitation Agency has been unable to deal with the problem -- from its transportation to the final problem of disposal. Experience shows that it can take days or even weeks to get a garbage truck's flat tire repaired, due to the long bureaucratic chain that is involved. The fact is that many dump trucks are left inoperable, often for the most trivial or "unreasonable" reasons.

Some kind of acknowledgement is needed among Jakarta's decision makers that the administration alone will not be able to solve the prolonged garbage problems. It should be clear by now that from the point of view of technology and human resources, and from financial view points, the Jakarta administration has failed miserably in its efforts to solve Jakarta's daunting garbage problem. It is therefore worthwhile for the Jakarta city administration to start thinking about entrusting the handling of garbage to a private enterprise. Solving the problem would benefit the central government, the city administration as well as the citizens at large. The key to the problem is political will.