Jejak Online

Newsletter LEAD Cohort 9

SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

Anjelita Malik, Austrade, Jakarta

Many of us have wondered what we can do to manage the waste, despite our different professions and roles in community. Ideas like sorting, recycling and energy recovery are not new to us. But what has been done to improve waste management? And how can we, as part of the community, play our part in waste management?

I was once told about an ad shown in a Pacific Islands country. The ad says, "There is no away". It refers to the common practice of throwing unused things away without further thoughts. Well, the ad puts it very accurately. There is no magic place called 'away', which will swallow our waste forever. When we throw away our garbage, it goes somewhere, not 'away'.

This notion of 'no away' is essentially important for solid waste management. If it does not go away, it has to be carefully managed. Every urban or rural area now have some kind of waste management, whether it is as simple as bringing your garbage to a local dump site, or involving a large fleet of dump trucks and well-managed landfills. Waste management may not be as big a problem in rural areas as in urban areas, where the demographic pressures limit many alternatives in 'putting away' the garbage.

In Indonesian cities, waste management is part of the public service. The common practice is that it is divided into two levels. At the local level, the community pays small manual transfer services to bring their waste to a local temporary disposal container. At the zonal or regional level, the waste will be transferred to a transfer station or straight to a final disposal site. Sometimes sorting and recycling plants also exist at those facilities. A final disposal site could be a simple landfill in Indonesia or a sophisticated sanitary landfill in developed countries, which employs state-of-the-art technology, to ensure that the waste will decompose and its by-products will not pollute the immediate environment.

Due to the projected increase in population and change of lifestyle, the government is now facing more problems in managing waste. It is not uncommon for us to see plastic bags, drinking bottles and food wraps on the streets. Some cities still experience waste being picked up by trucks days after it starts sending out foully smell. Another problem is that our cities are running out of available land to dump the waste, hence increasing the cost of waste management. The cost, will subsequently be borne by the community, through the waste management fee.

What are the options that the government has been exploring to solve this problem?

It is public knowledge that the mere existence of waste management does not guarantee its effectiveness. One of the approaches to increase effectiveness is by utilising private sector capability in various stages of solid waste management. Bali and Western Java have committed multilateral funding to establish private sector operated systems and facilities. Cities such as Bandung and Makassar are already in agreements with private companies to recycle valuable components of their municipal waste.

However, private sector is not the only solution. It only provides sufficient amount of competition. Competition gives the government the power to choose the most effective service provider, whether public or private. Studies are being done to establish a good system for this particular purpose. We can only hope that the results provide us with a reliable system and the implementation provides us with best practice for waste management.

In the more technical area, various methods to recycle the waste are being tried. Particular attention has been directed to the organic waste-processing concept, widely known as composting. Most Indonesian cities are humid and generate waste with a very high organic content (could get as high as 80%), which really favour composting. Although the economic feasibility is still one step behind its technical feasibility, both the public and private sector have expressed sufficient interests in this concept. Some energy recovery methods are integrated to composting, which makes it more attractive. Apart from that, paper, plastic, glass and metal recycling have started earlier, mostly done by the private sector through small and medium enterprises.

Then, what can we do as individuals?

Some (hopefully many) of us want to take an active part. Well, the first part is to do what we were told when we were kids, to ensure that we do not litter! We can take that further by providing the 'free' reminders to those forgetful people who keep thinking our earth is a big garbage bin!

Reducing and separating our waste are what we can do even further at home. There are many things we can do to reduce our waste at home. Refilling containers, buying in bulk, buying durable products, using reusable cloths and hundreds more.

We can separate organic waste from paper waste, plastic waste, etc. It has been done in many developed cities in the world. But then what? Unfortunately, there is no system currently in place to process what we would enthusiastically separate at home. Never be discouraged!

For the organic waste, if we have time to spare, we can use our great grandmother's recipe, which is separating organic waste and making a simple composting process with the help of a hole at the backyard. The compost could be used for the lawn, as it physically enhances the soil texture and make it more favourable for planting.

Well, composting might be a good idea, but what if our house does not have any single spot for living things to grow? For some good reasons, paper and plastic collectors are there to help us. Those people whom we call 'pemulung' or scavengers are really an important part of the waste chain. They channel the recyclable waste to the middlemen or recycling companies. Helping them sort it would make their work more efficient, and help them make more money.