Garbage can be lucrative if handled properly
Multa Fidrus
The Jakarta Post, Tangerang
Although it is unsightly and smelly, garbage is not without its uses. Indeed, it can be a source of money and even help to conserve the environment as long as there is proper awareness and the goodwill to handle it properly.
Take the efforts of PT Bumi Serpong Damai (BSD), a major developer that manages the largest housing complex in Serpong, Tangerang regency.
The company has not merely built luxury homes and developed one-third of the 6,000 hectares it has acquired into a commercial area; it has also paid attention to long-term solutions for the handling of domestic waste, which can have serious health and safety implications.
BSD sees integrated waste treatment as the solution, a combination of recycling, composting, incineration and sanitary landfill: Waste collected from the source is separated and treated on site, while the remaining waste goes into a sanitary landfill.
Methane gas generation, which would normally make a normal landfill unsafe as a building site, can be put to use as an alternative energy source. The remaining residue from recycling and composting, meantime, can be burned in two huge incinerators.
The landfill has layers of sand to keep disease-carrying insects away, and pipes to carry away water, along with methane gas given off by the breakdown of solid waste.
Using a simple mantra -- reduce, reuse and recycle -- BSD now produces an average 1.5 tons of organic fertilizer per day from garbage it collects from homes.
BSD built a Rp 5 billion integrated waste treatment facility on a three-hectare plot on Jl. Raya Cisauk in 1992. Two huge incinerators that it operates can process 10 cubic meters of rubbish at once.
"As of today, the organic fertilizer we produce here is still for BSD's use only," Steve Mawengkang, head of PT BSD Asset Maintenance and Corporation told The Jakarta Post recently.
He said the market price of the fertilizer ranged from Rp 700 to Rp 1,000 per kilogram but it was actually sold at only Rp 400 per kilogram since the buyer is a BSD partner company that manages all existing parks in the complex.
"With this facility in operation, we expect zero growth for garbage. But the obstacle we face is that we cannot afford to operate the incinerators since fuel prices increased late last year," he said.
He added that BSD city, with a population of over 100,000 people, produces at least 150 cubic meters of garbage per day, 50 percent of which could be transformed into organic fertilizer.
"Twenty percent of the production is picked up by scavengers for recycling and the rest is burned in incinerators," he said.
Budi Setiawan, head of the integrated waste treatment operation, said the operational cost of the facility was up to Rp 45 million per month while the monthly revenue from the sale of organic fertilizer was not more than Rp 18 million.
"It means that BSD still has to provide support by as much as Rp 27 million for the operation of the facility each month," he said, adding that the composting process can take a month.
The Post observed that soon after BSD dump trucks unloaded trash, several workers assisted by eight scavengers separated organic and nonorganic trash before it was put onto a rototiller modified to shred trash.
The already processed organic waste was then piled up on the floor, forming several mounds in a large warehouse for month-long fermentation. The next stage is to mix it in a semi-microbioactivator, which shreds and converts the fermented waste into useful material.
Budi said the organic fertilizer had been tried out at all parks in the complex and it was proven that many types of plant, tree and flower could become fertile.
Dhony Rahajoe, head of urban infrastructure at Indonesian Real Estate (REI) said it was hoped that BSD's integrated waste treatment installation would develop into one of the main organic fertilizer producers in Tangerang.
He said that, currently, the garbage handling system, as applied across the country, merely shifted problems from one place to another, with no thought of saving the environment.
"We have to change our approach to embrace recycling, not just collection and dumping. If BSD had not taken the initiative to build such a vital facility, garbage problems like those faced by Bandung municipality and Jakarta would also have occurred here," he said.
Tangerang regency's 3.4 million people produce at least 6,290 cubic meters of household garbage per day, but only 3,080 cubic meters can be transported to a final dumpsite.
Dhony said garbage was a problem that all cities across the country have to deal with and the root cause of the problem was the different perceptions on garbage of the government, businesspeople and community.
"Recycling schemes at the neighborhood level are needed to reduce the volume of rubbish produced by residents, but there was still little support available," he said.
Most communities still wonder why they have to spend money on garbage treatment. The government, on the other hand, has yet to think of environmental protection costs and most businesspeople do not care about garbage problems.
There seems to be a definite lack of political will from local governments to operate recycling and composting schemes. (September 26, 2006)
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