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ollowing the finding of a heap of trash under a toll road in North Jakarta a few days ago, over 300 joint personnel were deployed on Friday to clean it up.

The joint team consisted of personnel from the Indonesian Military (TNI), the Public Facility Maintenance Agency (PPSU) and the North Jakarta Environment Agency, the agency’s head, Ceffi Hidayat, said on Friday, as quoted by kompas.com.

The trash had been accumulating under the Pelabuhan toll road in Warakas subdistrict in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, since the toll road was constructed in 1993.

Three-wheeled motorcycles had to transport the trash from the location, which is inaccessible to garbage trucks.

“The problem lies in its access. We rely on 20 garbage motorcycles that transport the trash to a disposal site,” Ceffi said.

He added that 150 tons have been removed over the past three days, adding that the clean-up would run for a month.

Once the site was free of trash, Ceffi said it could be turned into a useful space, such as a playground.

“We need to hold a meeting involving many stakeholders including PT Citra Marga Nusaphala Persada [the toll road operator that owns the land] to manage the space.”

Jakarta’s waste problem remains one of the most pressing issues as the city produces over 7 tons of trash daily and not all can be properly treated, given the limited space for disposal sites as well as the lack of technology to process it.

Although community movements have been involved in waste management, they were not enough to make the city clean, some environmentalists said.

Jakarta needs to develop a strategy to increase the sense of belonging, so that in turn, people will be more motivated to keep their city clean.

The same concern was raised by Capt. Ahmad Sujana, an officer of the North Jakarta Military District, who was involved in the clean-up process.

“Unfortunately, the ones [who throw their garbage there] do not contribute [to the clean up]. They don’t even have awareness that this is something that we need to deal with together,” Ahmad told journalists.

Separately, PT CMNP spokesperson Agsa Fahmi said they found it difficult to secure the space due to limited human resources.

“The Pelabuhan toll road stretches from Tanjung Priok to Penjaringan, which is 12 to 15 kilometers long. We only have less than 10 personnel to supervise the area,” he added.

He said they tried to build a fence in some parts of the area to prevent people from throwing their garbage there.

“But there were people who uses ladders. If we found any, we will throw them away,” he said.

Last month, 1,000 cubic meters of garbage accumulated in Muara Angke, North Jakarta, covering what is supposed to be a mangrove area.

The trash reportedly came from the ocean and was washed ashore by westerly winds, which has been prevalent since December 2017.

To clean up the garbage, hundreds of joint personnel from the Thousand Islands environmental sub-agency, the Public Facility Maintenance Agency and the TNI were deployed for around a week.

Ten thousand mangrove seedlings were planted in the area after the clean up.