T

he government will carry on with its plan to build incinerators to try to end the acute garbage problems that have bedeviled the country, despite a recent court ruling that voided the legal basis of the policy.

The Supreme Court revoked Presidential regulation (Perpres) No. 18/2016 on the speeding up of the development of waste-based power plants or incinerators through a ruling in November.

The ruling was based on a request by various civic groups, including the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) and the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL), spurred by health and environmental concerns.

Some experts have raised concerns that the exhaust gas from the incinerators would contain hazardous substances, including dioxins and furan.

“It is well known that incinerators are dangerous for health and for the environment,” said Walhi chairwoman Nur Hidayati.

Therefore, the plaintiffs argued that the Perpres violated various laws on health, the environment and waste management.

Following the revocation of the Perpres, the plan to build incinerators in seven cities, namely Jakarta, Bandung, Tangerang, Semarang, Surabaya, Surakarta and Makassar, should be scrapped immediately, Nur said.

“It can be interpreted that incinerators should not be part of a national program,” she said.

The Environment and Forestry Ministry’s waste management director, Sudirman, said the government could proceed with the plan as it has a road map that laid out the plan to build incinerators.

“We already have a national strategy policy on waste management. It contains targets for waste management based on incinerator technology. So if the Perpres is revoked, we still can [proceed with the plan],” he told The Jakarta Post. “The regulations are all there.”

Sudirman said the ministry would discuss how to proceed with the plan with the plaintiffs.

“The Perpres was only meant to speed up the process without breaking the rules,” he said.

According to Sudirman, building the incinerators is the only way to solve waste problems in some cities, especially Jakarta.

“There’s no other way around in Jakarta. How do you want to implement the 3R [reuse, reduce, recycle] program? The people aren’t disciplined enough,” Sudirman said.

Furthermore, he said Jakarta had a limited amount of land to accommodate its residents’ waste, resulting in an over-reliance on the Bantar Gebang landfill in Bekasi, West Java, to handle the city’s 6,700 tons of daily garbage.

“If the waste reached 7,000 tons per day, how do you sort the waste for compost? How much land do you need?” Sudirman said.

The Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) has listed Jakarta as the only city that could run the project, saying that the city’s problem with waste is already chronic, while there is no need yet for other cities to build incinerators.

Nur said his civic group would keep challenging the plan should it proceed, arguing that building the incinerators was a quick fix that would only add other problems in the future.

Therefore, she said the government should focus on minimizing the amount of household waste.

“We have to move toward minimizing waste to the fullest extent and involving the public in the sorting of waste. Right now, the government is taking the easy way out. They’re lazy,” said Nur.

The government actually introduced the concept of 3R through the country’s first solid waste management law in 2008. However, the mantra has failed to catch on in the country.

Recycling only makes up 7.5 percent of waste management in metropolitan cities, while the figure dips to 1.9 percent all across Indonesia.

However, there are some cities that have succeeded in implementing the 3R program, such as Surabaya in East Java.

“Only 30 percent of Surabaya’s household waste goes to a landfill, while in Jakarta, more than half of its waste still goes to a landfill,” said the ministry’s director general of dangerous, toxic material and waste management, Tuti Hendrawaty.