The Jakarta administration inaugurated on Sunday the first and long-awaited incinerator facility project in Sunter, North Jakarta.
Jakarta, home to some 10 million residents, produces around 7,100 tons of waste every day, and the project is expected to turn some 2,200 tons of waste into 35 megawatts (MW) of electricity.
"The 7,100 tons of waste is enough to cover Borobudur temple," Jakarta Deputy Governor Sandiaga Uno said during the event, which marks the site opening of the project, as quoted by kompas.com.
Construction will start as soon as the Environment and Forestry Ministry issues the Environmental Impact Analysis (Amdal) documents for the project, which is expected within this year.
Currently, waste produced in the city is disposed of at the Bantar Gebang landfill in Bekasi, West Java, which is estimated to reach full capacity in five years.
The Jakarta administration has planned to develop similar facilities in three other locations in the city.
City-owned developer PT Jakarta Propertindo, or Jakpro, which is responsible for the facility’s construction along with Finnish energy company Fortum, has pledged that the facility would be environmentally friendly.
The government had tried to accelerate the application of waste-to-energy in seven cities (Jakarta, Bandung, Makassar, Surabaya, Semarang, Surakarta and Tangerang) by issuing Presidential Regulation (Perpres) No. 18/2016 on the acceleration of the development of waste-based power plants.
However, this regulation was later annulled by the Supreme Court, following a challenge by various civil groups arguing that incinerators were dangerous for the environment. (fac/wit)
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