Jakarta's trash problem, solution

It seems to me that the city's garbage and waste disposal problem has reached threatening proportions. It is appalling that the City Administration stubbornly still sits in a cave and is pushing for incinerators to burn garbage at a huge investment cost of US$101 million each -- in re: Damar Harsanto's article in The Jakarta Post on Aug. 20 entitled City plans to use incinerators to handle waste.

Tusy A. Adibroto, BPPT researcher has rightly sounded the alarm! Up to this point, traditional methods of treating organic waste has not been carried out in a cost-effective manner and the waste contains high quantities of contaminants. Incineration will create residue problems, air pollution, destruction of nutrients, concentration of heavy metals and odor emissions.

Today, there are high-technology solutions in the world; patented conversion processes with the ability to continually (24-hour operation) and successfully process biodegradable waste materials with up to 10 percent non-biodegradables mixed in. The resulting product is a clean, organic, pathogen-free fertilizer concentrate! Even byproducts such as methane gas and pure potable drinking water can be free! Hospital wastes are also processed safely and hygienically; no odors, no toxic effluents.

Solid inorganic waste after screening is recycled as usual! All this can be done in capacity modules of up to 1,000 tons/day at a cost of US$17 million, which is less than 20 percent per plant than what the incinerators will destructively do. The added cost of incinerators being energy to burn huge capacities? There is no added value from incineration.

Current waste disposal options have their limitations and their own environmental problems.

So, why not convert waste from a problem to a resource quickly now!

SAM S. DANIELS, Managing Consultant Indonesia, PT. GCK., Jakarta.