Solution in sight for West Java garbage crisis

The West Java provincial administration has reached an agreement with state forestry company Perhutani to use the firm's land plot in Sarimukti as a garbage dump serving three cities for the next three years.

The three cities to use the site include Bandung city, Bandung regency and Cimahi.

During his visit to the new temporary Sarimukti dump site in Rajamandala, Bandung regency, 30 km west of Bandung city, West Java Deputy Governor Nu'man Abdul Hakim said his administration would set aside more than Rp 20 billion (US$2.2 million) to run the temporary dump site.

He said the central government would provide Rp 18 billion through the Public Works Ministry, while the remaining funds would be made available through the provincial administration, together with the three relevant regions.

"The funds will be used to restore infrastructure and waste management," Nu'man said.

The 21.5-hectare Sarimukti dump site can be used after restorations demanded by area residents have been completed.

The residents had earlier blockaded the road to the dump site because management failed to keep its promise to turn their garbage into compost fertilizer.

As a result, tens of hectares of residents' land and paddy fields were covered in garbage, which was accompanied by an overwhelming stench.

Nu'man promised his office would oversee the dump site to ensure workers carried out a sanitary landfill system.

"We will use around 20 percent of the site to produce compost," said Nu'man.

After the final dumping site's operation period ends, the three bordering regions would jointly manage the Leuwigajah dump site as an integrated management system to produce compost as well as electricity, he said.

The project would also involve Malaysian consortium Umpan Jaya.

The project has so far been hampered because the Bandung municipality deemed the location of the Sarimukti dump site too far away.

Bandung decided to build a garbage processing facility incorporating a power generating plant in Gedebage in eastern Bandung.

In February 2005, a garbage slide at the Leuwigajah dump site in Cimahi killed more than 100 people and triggered a major garbage crisis in the three regions.

According to plan, the provincial administration will reuse the 100-hectare Leuwigajah dump site to manage garbage over the next 25 years after it has completed the land requisition program in the area.

Division head at the Sarimukti dump site Dani Zakaria said rubbish overflow and other issues had been inadvertently solved by around 600 scavengers from Bandung, Cianjur and even as far as Cirebon.

The Sarimukti dump site has collected as many as 761,334 tons of garbage from the three regions for the past year, 642,000 tons of which came from Bandung city alone.



Source : www.thejakartapost.com


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