Medan reenacts bylaw to deal with garbage

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

The Medan, North Sumatra, municipal administration reenacted a bylaw banning residents from depositing litter, to overcome a problem that had again become a burden to the administration after a lapse of six months.

Bylaw No.30/1993 stipulates that anyone found to have deposited litter is subject to a maximum of six months' imprisonment plus a Rp 50,000 (less than US$5) fine.

Municipality spokesman Arlan Nasution said on Friday that the decision had eventually been taken, after lengthy meetings, to identify the most effective way of keeping the city clean by using the city's manual workers.

"The bylaw was officially annulled six months ago because we overcame the waste problem. But recently the problem emerged again so the bylaw has had to be reenacted," he told reporters.

Medan, the third-largest city in the country after Jakarta and Surabaya, produces around 411 tons of waste each day.

The municipality, which comprises 21 regencies and 151 smaller kelurahan (administrative units), divides waste collection into five zones. Each zone comprises five regencies at the most.

However, the city's waste management service has left residents unsatisfied as almost half of the daily household waste is not collected.

The municipality has only 98 garbage trucks, with 1,794 employees to collect the garbage and deliver it to the dumpsites in the rural areas of Namobintang, Deli Serdang and Kelurahan Terjun, Medan Labuhan.

The administration's waste policy will soon face strong criticism from the council.

Council deputy speaker Ibrahim Sakti Batubara said the policy to reenact the bylaw had come far too late and was not effective in dealing with the waste problem in the city.

Carrying out raids to stop litter being deposited, said Batubara, was not the solution.

"What the administration should do is find a way to collect the waste and take it to the dumpsite as soon as possible," he told The Jakarta Post at his office.