The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Jakarta is not only dumping its trash at the Bantargebang dump in Bekasi; the city is also stashing ticking time bombs.
Two scavengers were killed at the dump in September when mountains of Jakarta's trash collapsed.
For the past 17 years the Bantargebang dump has been the main drop off point for Jakarta's garbage, with about 6,000 tons of garbage arriving every day.
Most of the 125-hectare dump is located on land owned by the Jakarta administration, while 17 hectares belongs to Bekasi.
Apart from September's deadly collapse, the lax landfill management system in place at the dump has taken a heavy toll on the surrounding environment and the health of nearby residents.
But if the trucks stopped delivering the capital's trash to Bantargebang, Jakarta would soon be buried beneath piles of garbage, as happened this year in Bandung when that city had trouble finding a location to take its trash.
This actually happened a few years back in Jakarta, with heaps of rubbish produced by households sitting uncollected for days on the side of roads.
The administration, however, seems not to have learned any lessons from this incident.
But solving the city's waste problems should not be the sole responsibility of the administration and its hordes of agencies.
To reduce Jakarta's dependence on the Bantargebang dump, the administration has begun studies on establishing high-tech garbage treatment centers in each of the city's five municipalities. Even so, from preliminary studies it is clear that these new centers would not be able to accommodate all of Jakarta's garbage.
And while ambitious plans have been laid out for building waste treatment plants using the latest technologies, plans are useless without the will to implement them.
The administration allocated Rp 10 billion in 2006 for the development of five waste processing facilities with bale press machines in five subdistricts in West Jakarta, but the project remains in the tender stage.
But there are good initiatives at the community-level to deal with Jakarta's waste problems. All the administration has to do is take notice of these ideas, encourage them and provide support to roll them out on a larger scale.
Residents at several housing estates in the city have started building their own mini-centers to process organic waste into fertilizer.
Using their own initiative and funding, residents in Ciputat, Tangerang and a kampong in Mampang Prapatan, South Jakarta, replicated a successful waste management pilot project initiated by the United Nations Children's Fund in Banjarsari, West Java.
Those with the money chose to set up small composting posts, while others with limited funding took the alternative of using molasses to turn waste into profitable liquid fertilizer sold for Rp 5,000 a bottle.
The initiative helped residents changer their daily behavior as they started sorting organic and non-organic waste.
These efforts have significantly reduced the amount of waste the areas had to have taken to the city dump.
Several private companies also have sponsored environmental clean-up programs, ranging from teaching waste management in schools to working with retailers to pool and recycle non-organic waste from consumers.
With the city estimating that waste volume will increase to 6,678 tons per day by 2015, it clearly needs to join hands with the community in handling the waste problem.
Some initiatives and efforts have already been made, they just need further support to yield optimum results.
If the administration supported these small initiatives and included them into a comprehensive waste management system, Jakarta would no longer be dumping its garbage in someone else's backyard.
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Jakarta waste facts
Daily waste production 6,400 tons
Waste material Organic 65%
Non-organic 35 %
Source Residential 58%
Traditional markets 10%
Commercial areas 15%
Industrial areas 15%
Streets and parks 2%
Jakartans spend more than Rp 100 million a day on plastic packaging.
More than 118 hectares of land in the city is occupied by garbage.
Source: Jakarta Sanitation Agency, 2005
