TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Households main contributor to waste, gas emissions
Domestic waste remains one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases in Indonesia, largely because the majority of the nation’s dumps are poorly managed and still use improper disposal systems
Change Size
Domestic waste remains one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases in Indonesia, largely because the majority of the nation’s dumps are poorly managed and still use improper disposal systems.
The Indonesian Environment Report examined the condition of dumps in 170 cities last year, including in the capital Jakarta.
The report found 60 percent of the cities surveyed rely on unmanaged dump sites.
The annual report showed many cities only disposed of around 65 percent of daily waste at actual disposal sites. Around one third of household waste was burned and 15 percent was dumped illegally in rivers and parks.
The report said Surabaya was the only city that adopted the controlled-landfill system and practiced the reduce, reuse and recycle concept.
Surabaya produces around 6,400 cubic meters of waste per day. Jakarta dumps over 90 percent of its 27,000 cubic meters of daily waste at the Bantar Gebang disposal site, which still uses the open dumping system.
The report said Indonesia produced a large amount of methane gas (CH4) from garbage.
Methane is one key gas contributing to global warming and climate change.
Producing around 45 million cubic meters of garbage annually, mostly from metropolitan cities, Indonesia could be producing around 520,000 tons of methane, the report said.
The open burning of waste also emitted chemical toxins such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitric oxide and methyl chloride, all of which are harmful to the environment and people’s health.
The Kyoto Protocol encourages developing countries like Indonesia to engage in projects aimed at reducing methane gas emissions from dumps.
Under the Kyoto’s clean development mechanism (CDM), groups promoting these projects can receive financial support from wealthier countries.
Chairwoman of the Association of Indonesian Solid Waste Sri Bebasari said the CDM project was just one step in the right direction.
“Each city should have shifted to the sanitary landfill system as required by the 2008 law on waste management,” she said.
The law requires that all cities have sanitary landfill sites by 2013 at the latest. –– JP/Adianto P. Simamora
