Giant waste treatment plant desperate for customers
BOGOR, West Java (JP): A new waste treatment plant, the first in Indonesia and reportedly the largest in Southeast Asia, now desperately needs customers to stay afloat.
The plant in Cileungsi, operated by PT Prasadha Pamunah Limbah Industri (PPLI), began operation in January and will be formally inaugurated by President Soeharto later in the month.
So far, it has only processed 2,000 tons of waste and looks like it will be heavily underutilized unless it gets customers fast. The plant, which cost $20 million, has a total capacity of 60,000 tons a year.
The plant is jointly owned by Waste Management International of Britain, PT Bimantara Citra (a private firm owned by Bambang Trihatmodjo) and the Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal), a government agency.
President of PT PPLI Patrick Heininger said that, based on the company's survey, manufacturing plants in Jakarta and West Java jointly produce some 99,000 tons of waste a year.
He said that, so far, 23 companies are already using the facilities offered by his company, from the automotive, petrochemical, chemical and battery industries.
Heininger said he hopes the government will soon urge companies to have their waste treated at PPLI.
PPLI charges between $107 and $400 per ton of treated waste, depending on the kind of treatment required. The rate includes the transport of waste from the factories to Cileungsi.
Heininger assured reporters who visited the plant yesterday that the rates are quite competitive.
"This price is lower than in Europe, and almost the same as the United States," he said. He added that the rates could further decline if more companies use the facilities.
The plants offers to treat up to 95 percent of all hazardous waste, solid or liquid, produced by industrial factories in Jakarta and West Java.
There is also a unit to recycle oil which can be reused in cement factories. This part of the plant will be completed this month.
All waste brought to the site are "stabilized" through chemical processes and then dumped in a huge landfill nearby which is also part of the PPLI complex, according to Heininger.
The plant, located in 53 hectares land in Nambo village near Cileungsi West Java, is procuring 30 hectares of land which it will use as a dumping site.
The stabilized waste in landfill is then covered with plastic wrapper to avoid rainfall because it will be too expensive to treat the additional water that would be contaminated at the site.
"Water from the landfill is pumped to special facility to be treated, then be used as a mixer in stabilizing the hazardous waste," he explained.
Government officials said that a second waste treatment plant is now being considered in Cerme near Surabaya, East Java, which has the second largest concentration of industries in Indonesia after Jakarta. (yns)