Waste management solution

As a consultant working for the government of Indonesia, the World Bank, the ADB and bilateral agencies for the past 15 years in Indonesia, I was staggered when I read the article entitled City plans to use incinerators to handle waste in The Jakarta Post, 20 Aug. 20.

The article announced that the Jakarta Administration (DKI) see the future of waste management in incineration technology. Everyone in the local government waste management business knows that there is a long and twisted history of the use and failure of this type of technology in this country.

It has always involved high capital investment, a failure to understand the type of waste, a failure to recognize waste as a resource, an inability to understand the pattern of incentives working and more importantly a failure to recognize that there are social and environmental reasons why local residents living near such facilities eventually say enough is enough. If this is not clear to DKI Jakarta officials just ask them about the Bojong fiasco.

The government has just spent more than a million dollars preparing a sustainable waste management solution for the Jabodetabek region which involves three regional landfills combined with community based programs to avoid, recycle and reuse waste. This solution can be implemented for considerably less than the more than US$100 million that will be required for the "burn it-belch it" technology of yesteryear.

In order to adopt this sustainable approach, the issue of waste management in the Jakarta region should be considered an issue of national importance as there are now three provinces involved and even the regional autonomy law dictates the use of a regional partnership approach in such a situation. Only concerted national level action can prevent another tragic waste of taxpayer resources.

Non-sustainable or "quick fix" decisions about infrastructure or technology solutions taken without a clear understanding of broad scale outcomes, and the relationship to the system as a whole, hampers our ability to achieve coordinated, integrated solutions.

DOUGLAS MARTIN Social and Environmental Consultant Jakarta