Jakarta's garbage woes

Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso can draw a sigh of relief. The Bekasi municipality's announcement on Wednesday to allow Jakarta to continue to dump its garbage at Bantar Gebang -- Jakarta's biggest garbage dump so far -- gives the capital city at least temporary respite from having to find an immediate solution to the crucial problem of preventing us all from gradually being buried under mountains of garbage. For that, Sutiyoso has the central government, the home ministry in particular, to thank for intervening in the dispute.

Jakarta's newspapers have been filled in the past few days with reports and comments on this long-standing problem: where or how to dispose of the tons of garbage the city produces daily. Up to this week, Bantar Gebang was convenient. Located just east of Jakarta, it was close yet far enough removed from the city center. With its 104 hectares, the dump could hold the estimated 25,000 cubic meters of garbage Jakarta produces daily. And, aside from complaints by residents living close to the area about air and groundwater pollution, Bantar Gebang did not seem to raise much of a stink among either local officials or residents in Bekasi.

Lulled perhaps by the absence of any strong protests, the Jakarta city authorities were alarmed to learn how on Monday the Bekasi municipality decided to permanently close the Bantar Gebang dump. In this era of regional autonomy, regional administrations indeed have the authority to make such decisions. To add to the consternation of the Jakarta authorities, not only Bekasi law enforcement personnel, but crowds of local Bekasi residents from nearby areas appeared on the scene. Four garbage trucks were burned and others were vandalized when the people tried to stop them from dumping their loads at the dump.

There are lessons to be learned by all the parties involved in these incidents. First of all, Jakarta's garbage disposal problem is by no means new. City authorities from the time of governor Ali Sadikin in the 1970s up to the present have wracked their brains for a solution. At one point experts suggested turning the mountains of waste into compost. For some reason, this never worked out.

Given the long-standing and increasingly loud protests from environmentalists and local Bantar Gebang residents about Jakarta's garbage management, however, it is difficult to blame the critics for accusing Jakarta city authorities of inertia. Only after Bantar Gebang was closed down and garbage started to pile up at points along Jakarta's streets did the Jakarta city administration seem to wake up from its apathy and start looking frantically for alternative sites.

The Bantar Gebang closure cost the chief of the Jakarta sanitation office, Saksono Hoesodo, his job when Sutiyoso dismissed him for incompetence. A number of Jakarta's garbage trucks have been destroyed or vandalized. And although for now the Bekasi administration's decision to postpone the closure of the Bantar Gebang dump, eventually scavengers, those useful workers who make a living out of scavenging the garbage at Bantar Gebang to be resold and recycled, also stand to lose their livelihoods.

All in all, for city with a multimillion population such as Jakarta, one essential lesson that this waste disposal incident teaches is never to take garbage lightly. If neglected, this is a problem that could cause grave damage to the environment and to the people living in it. Jakarta's environment is contaminated enough without uncollected garbage adding to the pollution.