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.