Waste management needs revamping
Waste management needs revamping
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
An environmental activist and a toxic waste expert called on the
city administration on Saturday to decentralize waste management
in order to reduce thousands of cubic meters of garbage from
being dumped into the city's rivers.
"I think the city administration needs to engage communities
and family units in managing the waste, since they are the ones
who know well about their neighborhoods. Make them responsible,"
artist and environmental activist Iga Mawarni said during an
Earth Day commemoration on Saturday.
To highlight water pollution in the city, the World Wildlife
Fund (WWF), in cooperation with the environment student group
Mapala from the University of Indonesia, made a four-minute video
presentation showing the changing purity of water in the Ciliwung
river.
Samples of water were taken from seven spots from the river
upstream at Desa Cempaka village in Bogor, West Java, to its
downstream at Muara Angke in North Jakarta.
"The water purity starts to change in Puncak, where kiosks
throw their garbage into the river, then it gets darker in
Central Jakarta, where many offices and industries channel their
waste into the river," said Kriskuarto Tutuko, a member of
Mapalla UI, who did the documentation.
Iga suggested that community units, especially those located
along city river banks, be motivated to manage their waste by
giving them rewards and punishments.
"If a community unit fails to manage their garbage, they
should get sanctions," the jazz singer said, adding that
mechanisms for implementing the idea should be discussed together
by the central government, the city administration and
representatives of city residents.
The city has 2,663 community units, which could be a great
asset to helping to manage the more than 25,000 cubic meters of
waste that the capital produces everyday. Must of the waste is
believed to be dumped into the city's rivers, aggravating floods
during the rainy season.
Expert Lukas Adhiakso, meanwhile, said that toxic waste in the
city's 13 rivers has already reached alarming levels.
"We have all kinds of waste starting from households waste,
pesticides to industrial and organic waste. All of these elements
reduce the content of oxygen in the rivers and cause deaths to
almost any forms of life in the river. The only thing that can
survive are bacteria, which cause many kinds of disease," said
Lukas, who has a doctorate in toxicology.
He also suggested that the city administration require all
households in the capital to separate their waste into organic
and inorganic, and encourage communities to compost organic
waste.
"The waste composting should be decentralized, meaning it
should not be done at a final dumping site, but at the
neighborhood level, such as a community unit," said Lukas, who
works for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
"Currently garbage is transferred from one dumping site to
another, which actually does not reduce the amount of garbage.
The problem is if one dumping site has problem, the whole waste
dumping chain is interrupted, and rivers become the alternative
dumping site," he said.
Garbage disposal is now handled by the city administration,
with communities only playing marginal roles. (006)