Shortage of funds halts development of garbage dump
Shortage of funds halts development of garbage dump
JAKARTA (JP): The city administration's plan to build a new
garbage dump at Ciangir, Tangerang, to replace the existing one
at Bantar Gebang, Bekasi, is being hindered by a lack of funds,
an official said on Friday.
Head of the city sanitation agency, Saksono Hoesodo, said that
due to the fund shortage, no physical work has been done on the
95.5-hectare plot of land reserved for the dump.
He explained that the Bantar Gebang dump was predicted to be
unusable within five years.
Saksono said that while trash piled up everyday at the 128-
hectare Bantar Gebang site, some of it 12 meters high, the agency
had not received any funds for the Ciangir site, even though it
was expected to start operating by 2001.
"The construction of infrastructure, including a road network
leading to it, and the procurement of waste processors need to be
done now," Saksono told The Jakarta Post.
"The construction of about 10 kilometers of roads to the new
site should have started this year. But, there's absolutely no
money," Saksono said.
He said the site was bought from 721 local residents at a cost
of Rp 15 billion.
Saksono said some American investors have expressed interest
in investing in the site, but the administration was still
considering the offer.
Ongky Sukasah, assistant to the city secretary for development
affairs, said on Friday that the administration should grab any
opportunity to get investors to invest in the dump's
construction.
"But, the partnership should guarantee the employment of
hundreds of Indonesian workers in the labor-intensive project,"
Ongky said.
Earlier this week, Saksono said the administration was
investigating a few methods of waste management but most of them
would either be expensive or contaminate the land.
"One of them is open dumping. This is to literally bury the
garbage into the land. This would definitely contaminate and
damage the land," Saksono said.
"Another is sanitary landfill. Here, the land is safeguarded
by a watertight construction that does not allow the alkalis
produced by the garbage to permeate into land."
This method is currently being used at Bantar Gebang, he said,
adding that this system was usable for at least 12 years.
"The watertight construction costs Rp 1.1 billion per hectare
and the waste management itself will take Rp 2.5 billion per
hectare with this method," Saksono said.
He said a method being considered for the new site was using
incinerators.
"However, incinerating 1,000 tons of garbage a day would cost
between Rp 400 billion and Rp 500 billion. The problem is, who
will invest that kind of money?"
He added that other methods included the waste to be converted
into chemicals.
"This is productive, too, but it would take too much money,"
he said.
An official of the National Development Planning Board's
Tangerang office, Doddy Hermiyono, said the administration still
did not possess an environmental impact assessment for the
Ciangir site.
Doddy said this was going against existing regulations.
"The assessment report should be in the hands of the
administration first, before the issuance of a permit declaring
the location as a waste dump," Doddy said.
He added that his office needed assurance from the city
administration that the "liquid produced from garbage" will not
contaminate the environment. (41/ylt)