Garbage is often viewed as nothing but a problem to the environment.
But the Tangerang regency and Jakarta provincial administrations have teamed up to transform their heaps of trash into a source of money, with the help of technology.
On Aug. 28, Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo and Tangerang Regent Ismet Iskandar signed a memorandum of understanding for collaboration to develop a state-of-the-art waste treatment plant on a 98-hectare plot of land in Ciangir, Legok, Tangerang.
"We've been focusing on finding long-term solutions to treat our waste by reducing its adverse impacts on human health and the environment," Sodik Suhardianto, a consultant for the Jakarta Sanitation Agency, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
He added authorities in Jakarta and Tangerang had proposed the Ciangir integrated waste treatment plant (TPST), which will use zero-waste aerobic and anaerobic digesters, as one of several solutions to their waste headaches.
At its most basic, anaerobic digester technology processes trash to produce electricity and organic fertilizer or compost, while aerobic technology produces fuel as well as organic fertilizer.
"The technology we'll apply at the Ciangir plant refers to the CDM *clean development mechanism* as recommended in the Kyoto Protocol," Sodik said.
"Indonesia ratified the CDM in 2005."
Tangerang Sanitation Agency head Herry Heryanto said the plant project had met all legal requirements based on a series of studies conducted by an independent team.
"As legal basis, we refer to the 2008 law on garbage management and the home ministry's 2009 regulation on technical guidance on collaboration implementation between regions," Herry said, adding that an environmental impact analysis of the planned facility was currently being conducted.
He added the regency administration was currently drawing up a draft agreement containing details about the collaboration.
"We expect to get the agreement signed once we've obtained the approval of the regency legislative council early next year," he said.
In January, the Jakarta administration will begin work on the existing road leading to the site of the proposed plant, fencing off the area and planting trees around the periphery as buffer strips.
Herry said the project was still drawing protests from local residents opposed to the plant, adding the protests were an example of the "lack of understanding about the benefits to them once the plant is up and running".
The latest protest came from residents of Ciangir who asked the legislative council to review the planned construction of the plant in their village.
They claimed they were concerned about the possible negative impacts to their health and to the environment once the plant was operational.
The administration claims the waste treatment plant will employ 1,500 local residents. The village will also receive 10 percent of tipping fees from the incoming garbage each day in the form of corporate social responsibility funds. The fee per ton of garbage is Rp 100,000.
"This means the village will receive Rp 25 million if 2,500 tons of garbage are trucked come to the plant every day," Herry said.
Sodik said non-treatable waste would be dumped at the site's landfill, while the rest would be processed to produce methane gas to run turbine generators, and the remaining solid residue would be recycled to make compost and bricks.
Ten-hectare landfill pits will be built, with piping installed to siphon off the methane.
"With this facility running, we expect zero waste from garbage, unlike the current garbage handling system that merely moves problems from one place to another with no thought of saving the environment," Sodik said.
The Jakarta administration will roll out the tender for the waste treatment plant, worth Rp 700 billion, early next year, with the plant set to go into operation in 2011.
