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Jakarta a possible option for incinerator: BPPT
The government is planning to locate the countryâs first waste-based power plant in Jakarta in a bid to end the acute garbage problems that have bedevilled the country over the last few years
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he government is planning to locate the country's first waste-based power plant in Jakarta in a bid to end the acute garbage problems that have bedevilled the country over the last few years.
The government plans to build incinerators to turn waste into energy in seven cities, namely Jakarta, Bandung, Tangerang, Semarang, Surabaya, Surakarta and Makassar.
However, the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) said that building incinerators had many health and environmental costs and listed Jakarta as the only city that could run the project.
'Jakarta's problem [with waste] is already chronic, but as for the other cities, it's not yet needed [to build incinerators],' BPPT waste researcher Sri Wahyono said at the agency's headquarters in Central Jakarta on Wednesday.
Sri said that Jakarta was the only city ready to implement the system, which was very costly.
'Jakarta has the financial capability to pay the Rp 400,000 [US$29] needed to process a ton of waste. In Japan, the cost to turn a ton of waste into energy is already Rp 1,000,000. But what about other cities? They don't have such a huge regional budget. They're only capable of paying Rp 80,000 per ton at most,'
he said.
However, the government has already drafted a presidential regulation (Perpres) as a legal basis for the policy.
President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo previously said that the government would ease permit issuance procedures for waste to energy (W2E) investors.
'Like it or not, the regional governments have to allocate part of their budget [to operate the incinerators] because the Perpres will be issued,' BPPT environmental technology center head Rudi Nugroho said on Wednesday.
He admitted that the waste problems in the six cities other than Jakarta were not as acute as those in Jakarta, where residents still rely heavily on the Bantar Gebang landfill in Bekasi to handle the city's 6,700 tons of daily garbage.
Environment and Forestry Ministry director-general for dangerous toxic materials and waste management Tuti Hendrawati Mintarsih said the ministry would proceed with the plan by conducting feasibility studies, such as emission standardization tests and environmental impact studies.
Karliansyah, the ministry's environmental pollution and damage control director-general, said that his team would only need three months to complete the emission standardization tests.
However, he admitted that measuring emissions from burned waste was not easy due to the characteristics of waste, which varied wildly.
'If we're talking about coal, we know for sure how much we get. But waste differs. That's our challenge,' he said.
Karliansyah also said that the ministry had not recommended the use of incinerators to deal with waste in the past due to the characteristic of waste in Indonesia.
'Indonesia's waste is mostly organic. It is moist. So why burn it? It's just a waste of energy,' he said.
According to the Asian Development Bank, incineration has limited use for municipal solid waste and has not had much success in the developing cities across Asia.
