TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Heavier punishment needed to tackle waste: Experts
Novrizal Tahar (Courtesy of Novrizal Tahar)Observers have called on the central government to impose harsher punishment on local administrations that fail to manage their waste, as Environment and Forestry Ministry data shows that all 514 cities across the country have yet to manage an average 68 percent of their garbage
Change Size
Novrizal Tahar (Courtesy of Novrizal Tahar)
Observers have called on the central government to impose harsher punishment on local administrations that fail to manage their waste, as Environment and Forestry Ministry data shows that all 514 cities across the country have yet to manage an average 68 percent of their garbage.
The 2008 Waste Management Law requires municipal and regency administrations to manage their waste at the local level by providing sanitary landfills or waste-processing infrastructure.
The Indonesian Forum for the Environment’s (Walhi) head campaigner for energy and urban issues, Dwi Sawung, said the central government had done little to address local administrations’ lack of seriousness in tackling waste problems.
He urged the home and finance ministries to impose administrative sanctions on regions that still used the open-dump approach as opposed to the sanitary sites required by the Waste Management Law.
“For instance, the Finance Ministry could cut a region’s general allocation funds [DAU] and special allocation funds [DAK] that still dispose of their waste at open-dumping sites,” he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
DAK are funds from the state budget that are used to cover the cost of specific activities of a region that qualifies for the national priority list, while DAU are mainly used for capital expenditure. The funds are significant revenue sources for autonomous regions on top of their locally generated incomes.
Environment and Forestry Ministry data reveals a continuous increase in the number of landfills using the open-dumping method in recent years, from 45.3 percent of all landfills in 2016 to 47 percent in 2017 and 55.5 percent in 2018.
In open dumping, solid waste piles up, forming mountains of garbage and emitting a stench as well as posing a risk of fire and trash avalanches, which have claimed trash picker’s lives in the past.
At sanitary sites, the waste decomposes faster as it is buried, eliminating the risk of fire and sources of disease.
The central government has rewarded a select few local administrations that operate sanitary landfills and are considered successful in managing their waste by providing regional incentive funds (DID).
According the Finance Ministry’s Fiscal Balance Directorate General data, this year the government disbursed waste management incentive funds totaling Rp 93.83 million (US$6,589) to 10 local administrations, namely Jakarta, Surabaya and Malang in East Java, Cimahi, Depok and Bogor in West Java, Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan, Balikpapan in East Kalimantan, Padang in West Sumatra and Makassar in South Sulawesi.
The ministry’s waste management director, Novrizal Tahar, acknowledged that local administrations had not managed their waste properly.
Novrizal cited data collected by the ministry from cities and regencies across the country, which revealed that only 32 percent of waste was managed “well and correctly” by local administrations.
“On average, 28 percent of the waste is exposed of directly in the environment without any processing,” he said during a panel discussion on waste management on Monday.
The remaining 40 percent is disposed of at landfills, the majority of which operate open-dumping sites.
He named several regions with insufficient waste management capacity, such as Bekasi in West Java, which processes 800 tons out of 2,400 tons of waste produced daily in the regency and Bogor, also in West Java, which only processes 600 tons out of 2,600 tons daily.
“The open-dumping site operated in Cipecang, South Tangerang, for example, is located near the Cisadane River. During heavy rain, garbage can slide into the river and end up in the sea,” Novrizal noted.
The Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry’s territorial management director general, Brahmantya Satyamurti Poerwadi, said Indonesia released 1.9 million metric tons of waste into the ocean annually, making it the biggest contributor after China. He cited studies predicting that waste would outnumber fish in the seas by 2050 if no serious measures were taken.
“In Bali during the westerly season, garbage can be seen at its beautiful beaches, which probably comes from the rivers. It takes commitment [to stop this],” he said during the discussion.
He said the government was committed to reducing household waste volume by 30 percent and recycling 70 percent of waste by 2025, as stipulated in Presidential Decree No. 97/2017 on waste management. The decree also requires every region to draft and submit a detailed strategy on managing household waste.
Sawung of Walhi said not every city had established a waste management system, let alone allocated enough funds to finance waste transportation and other facilities needed to process waste. This was especially common in small cities, he said.
“Local administrations should start planning their strategies, including on spatial planning to locate landfills,” he said.
