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South Tangerang to build waste power plant to solve two problems at once
South Tangerang is moving up from simply recycling its trash to turning it into a source of energy, solving two problems at the same time: The lack of space to dump waste and the need for electricity by its 1.8 million residents.
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The trash mountain at the Cipeucang Landfill in Serpong, South Tangerang is seen from a neighborhood about 1 kilometer away. Cipeucang is to no longer pile up trash if it manages to build a garbage-fueled power plant. (JP/Alya Nurbaiti)
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outh Tangerang is moving up from simply recycling its trash to turning it into a source of energy, solving two problems at the same time: The lack of space to dump waste and the need for electricity by its 1.8 million residents.
Environmental groups, however, are not impressed. They say building power plants that burn waste creates a new problem: air pollution. Others argue that it may not be cost effective without the support of people and governments for sorting garbage.
The city plans to build a Rp 1.7 trillion (US$122 million) waste-to-energy plant in Cipeucang, the municipality’s only landfill, which is already filled up with trash as high as 16 meters. It’s so full that trash has spilled over into the Cisadane River, which flows to the Java Sea.
Cipeucang, a 13-hectare facility, can take 300 tons of the approximately 970 tons of waste South Tangerang produces each day. The remainder goes to privately owned landfills, including one operated by Abu & Co, which manages waste from the huge BSD City. There are also 49 waste facilities managed by local groups that compost organic waste and recycle plastic waste.
Cipeucang relies on the biological process of decomposition by layering the trash with soil, but that is hardly sufficient since this only works for organic waste and not inorganic or plastic waste, South Tangerang Environment Agency secretary Yepi Suherman told The Jakarta Post.
“We need a technology to process the waste: hence the power plant,” he said.
A city campaign for households to sort their garbage into organic and inorganic has not been effective as is apparent from the daily trash collected by the 90 trucks operated by the agency. The trucks themselves have yet to be separated to carry only organic or inorganic waste.
