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.

Jakarta Post

Philippine cities share best practices in waste management

Not going to waste: Workers of the Babakan Sari integrated waste processing site in Bandung, West Java, shovel organic waste to be processed into compost on Monday

Ardila Syakriah and Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post)
Penang/Bandung
Thu, October 24, 2019

Share This Article

Change Size

Philippine cities share best practices in waste management

N

ot going to waste: Workers of the Babakan Sari integrated waste processing site in Bandung, West Java, shovel organic waste to be processed into compost on Monday. The facility receives at least 900 kilograms of organic waste from eight subdistricts daily, including for a zero-waste pilot project.(JP/Arya Dipa)

As Indonesian cities struggle to implement their zero-waste initiatives, two cities in the Philippines, have cut down on waste management costs thanks to a detailed and effective system.

The director of the Bioscience and Biotechnology Development Foundation (YPBB), David Sutasurya, who has been assisting several local administrations in West Java in developing policies to implement the initiative, said the lack of a clear national mandate on decentralized waste management resulted in slow progress toward reaching zero-waste goals.

He addressed the issue during the International Zero Waste Cities Conference organized by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and the Consumer’s Association of Penang, held on Monday and Tuesday in Penang, Malaysia. The event gathered officials and organizations from various regions in support of the initiative, including those of Bandung and Cimahi in West Java.

In Bandung, the capital city of West Java, a source waste segregation system has covered 14,720 residents this year, an increase from the 8,815 covered in 2018. With an average rate of compliance at 30 percent, waste diversion was recorded at below 20 percent among the households taking part in source segregation efforts, according to data from the YPBB.

The numbers pale in comparison to those of San Fernando, Philippines, which has a day population of around 1 million and observed a waste diversion rate of 55 percent in the first six months of its adoption of a zero waste principle in 2013. The city’s current sorting rate is at 80 percent, with a reported compliance rate of 93 percent in all 35 of its barangays — equivalent to Indonesia’s subdistricts — according to GAIA’s zero-waste case study report on the city.

“The difference is, in the Philippines, they have a clear mandate on decentralized waste management and source segregation in their national waste management law. Whereas in Indonesia, we only mention that people must reduce and handle waste in an environmentally sound manner,” David said during a panel discussion, citing Law No. 18/2008 on waste management.

The GAIA report notes that the Philippines had enacted the 2000 Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, which puts the prime responsibility of waste management on the barangays.

Its barangays are required to implement waste segregation at the source; collect and manage all biodegradable, reusable and recyclable waste; build the necessary facilities and acquire the appropriate land and vehicles to manage waste; and employ personnel to deliver waste services. Only then will the Philippines’ city administrations take care of the residual waste.

The problem in Indonesia’s national waste management, David said, was that, as each city administration had to formulate their own policies without being able to reference any national standards, the process could be rather difficult, time-consuming and lacking in “intellectual capital”. In Bandung, for instance, formulating a regulation on municipal solid waste management took more than five years, he said, adding that the regulation was still not enough to tackle the problem.

“The local administrations often don’t dare to create regulations that are not stipulated at the level of the central government. If they are regulated by the central government, then the local administrations will be more daring,” he told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the conference.

Sorted out: Residents of community unit (RW) 09 in Sukaluyu subdistrict, Bandung, West Java, are encouraged to sort their trash and dispose of it in a waste segregation site provided by the Bandung administration as part of its zero-waste program, which is being conducted across eight subdistricts in the city.(JP/Arya Dipa)
Sorted out: Residents of community unit (RW) 09 in Sukaluyu subdistrict, Bandung, West Java, are encouraged to sort their trash and dispose of it in a waste segregation site provided by the Bandung administration as part of its zero-waste program, which is being conducted across eight subdistricts in the city.(JP/Arya Dipa)

David said the YPBB and the Bandung and Cimahi local administrations were incorporating the Philippines’ national law into their municipal waste management policies, citing as an example the no-segregation, no-collection policy, which would help to enforce source segregation rules at households.

With improved waste sorting, such as with composting, biodigestion and waste processing, Bandung could suppress its costs for waste transportation and tipping fees at its primary disposal site at the Sarimukti landfill in Cipatat, West Bandung regency, in the hopes that the money saved could be used to pay informal waste collectors, David said. This would allow collectors to play a bigger role in monitoring and improving the program, just like in the Philippines, he added.

Bandung generates an average of 1,500 tons of waste per day, with Bandung Mayor Oded M. Danial noting that the city administration had to spend around Rp 160 billion (US$11.27 million) on waste management.

“It’s one of the reasons why we’re resorting to the zero waste initiative, because it’s been our concern that the current waste management system is taking a toll on our budget,” Oded said.

San Fernando Mayor Edwin Santiago said on the same occasion that the city had suppressed its spending in waste dumping to 12 million peso ($232,379) from 70 million.

“We have to first enforce education and information, then we have to enforce the law. We can’t put our money in garbage. We have to put our money in education and health care,” he said.

A similar concern was raised by Cimahi Environmental Agency head Mochamad Ronny, who said during the conference that the zero waste initiative was expected to save Rp 270 million of the Rp 11 billion the city spent annually on TPA Sarimukti tipping fees and waste transportation.

He told the Post on the sidelines of the conference that the initiative was currently adopted by 40 of the 312 community units in the city, 30 percent of which were at the source segregation stage, with the remaining in the education stage. With such progress, Ronny said the city had seen a decrease of waste disposed to the dumpsite from 225 tons to 212 tons per day.

“To pay for the current informal waste collectors, we’d need Rp 3 billion. If the zero waste program could run well, instead of spending all Rp 11 billion for operational and maintenance purposes, we could save some money and use Rp 3 billion of it to pay field workers,” Ronny said.

Another city in the Philippines, Tacloban, which was devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, has also seen the fruits of the zero waste initiative with a compliance rate of waste sorting at around 70 percent, resulting in a cut of 31 percent in waste transported to its landfill, saving 21.6 million peso in its annual budget.

“We can use the money for other things, such as increasing our calamity fund because we’re in a very bad geographic location. As we're prone to typhoons, we need to have good [waste management],” Aimee Delgado Grafil, a Tacloban city councillor, told the Post on the sidelines of the conference.

To ensure compliance, Grafil said the city had imposed sanctions that included community service requirements, fines of up to 5,000 peso — higher than the city's minimum monthly living wage at 3,500 peso — and imprisonment.

{

Your Opinion Counts

Your thoughts matter - share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.