Jakarta's garbage woes

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.