Jakarta garbage trucks resume dumping loads at Bantar Gebang
Jakarta garbage trucks resume dumping loads at Bantar Gebang
Annastashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Garbage trucks are once again transporting waste to the Bantar Gebang dump following the decision to reopen the site on Saturday, ending days of uncertainty about what to do with Jakarta's growing piles of waste.
During the week or so that Bantar Gebang was closed on the orders of the Bekasi municipality, the 800 garbage trucks that normally dump their loads at the site were out of operation, leaving garbage to pile up around Jakarta, with no alternative destination for the city's waste.
Although the site is yet to resume normal operations, at least 200 trucks a day have been traveling to the site since its reopening on Saturday afternoon.
The piles of waste around the city have begun to disappear as the garbage trucks return to duty.
Mansar Sibarani, a city official posted at Bantar Gebang, said he didn't expect the site to resume normal operations -- processing 600 to 800 garbage trucks daily -- for a few days, as many of the truck drivers were not yet aware of the reopening or were still in their home towns celebrating Lebaran.
He added that, thus far, there had been no protests from local residents about the reopening of the site.
"Hopefully there will be no more riots like the one that happened last week," Mansar said, referring to the residents' rampage last Monday, when they ransacked the office building at the Bantar Gebang compound, torched two garbage trucks and vandalized dozens of others.
According to a garbage truck driver at the site, Pungut Kiran, another reason the flow of trucks to the site had not yet returned to normal was that some drivers were afraid to travel to the dump in the wake of Monday's incident.
"Some of my friends are scared that the residents will be angry after learning that Bantar Gebang has reopened," Pungut said.
According to a resident, however, the vandalism was perpetrated mostly by people from outside the area.
Bekasi residents are now expressing mixed feelings about Bantar Gebang, even though they had fiercely objected to continued dumping there just a few weeks ago, due to the air and ground pollution caused by the site.
"Perhaps it would be better if we tried to understand Jakarta's condition and tried to be more tolerant," said Slamet Basuki, who has been living in the area since 1990.
However, 24-year-old Jarkasih, whose house is located around two kilometers from the site, maintains his opinion that it must be closed.
"It's not just the pollution and the strong garbage smell; the noisy and smelly garbage trucks that frequent our street are also disturbing," he told The Jakarta Post.
"Besides, I don't think they would make improvements at the site as announced by the Jakarta administration. Their promises are usually false," he said.
The Jakarta administration has said that it would properly manage the sanitary landfill system, build a sewerage system to channel leachete from the garbage and provide medical care for the residents.
Should Jakarta fail to fulfill these undertakings, the Bekasi mayoralty has said it will close the site again on Feb.1, 2002.