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Bali starts clean, garbage-fired electricity generation project
A garbage-fueled power plant at a dump site on Jl
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A garbage-fueled power plant at a dump site on Jl. Bypass Ngurah Rai has begun supplying electricity to state-owned electricity company PT PLN.
The plant, called the Sarbagita integrated garbage processing installation project, is located at the Suwung garage dump, about 10 kilometers from downtown Denpasar.
Its launch date was delayed for four years for reasons unknown.
The project, launched early last month, is expected to produce 2 megawatts (MW) of electricity this year, increasing to 9.6 MW by 2010.
"We hope all systems will begin functioning in early November," Budi Mulyanto, project manager of PT Navigat Organic Energi Indonesia (NOEI), a joint venture with General Electric, which manages the project, said Thursday.
PT NOEI applies an integrated garbage processing technique, including gasification, landfill use and anaerobic digestion, he added.
In its initial steps, the plant will process garbage from 68 dump trucks each day, equal to about 600 cubic meters of waste, Budi said. At full capacity, the plant is expected to process about 12,000 tons of garbage a day from Denpasar municipality and Badung, Gianyar and Tabanan regencies.
As of Thursday, a landfill cell had been constructed, with informal trash collectors seen separating non-organic waste, such as plastic, paper and metal.
"We still need trash collectors to separate waste before its processed. We will be employing those who used to collect trash informally," he added.
As he explained, most of the garbage at the Suwung dump site was piled in the open air, an inefficient system, as it relies on limited separation performed by informal collectors. The result was pollution of the surrounding areas, he added.
Construction of the plant constitutes Bali's first foray into the clean development program, designed to reduce global warming, Budi added.
According to the program, discussed at the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCC) in Nusa Dua last year, developing countries will receive financial benefits for their efforts to reduce gas emissions, with reduced emissions "purchased" by developed countries.
As methane gas from garbage is considered the greatest environmental threat, waste processing has been given priority in the effort to reduce global warming.
Made Suarnatha, director of the Wisnu Foundation, an environmental NGO in Bali, hoped the clean development program would also provide local communities with a sense of justice.
"Besides helping reduce the effects of climate change, we have to struggle on behalf of a kind of 'climate justice', for the sake of improving living conditions in local communities," he said.
For climate justice to be achieved, separation of household garbage has to be intensified, he added.
"I will offer a material recovery facility system in which residents will separate the garbage in order to resell certain components of the waste, while the remainder will be transported to the garbage dump," Suarnatha said.
