Global IssuesENVIRONMENT-INDONESIA: Solving Waste Woes Far from Easy
By running his illegal dumpsite, Nasrulloh believes he is doing the community good, helping the city government, doing his bit for the environment — while making money for himself as well.
After all, Tangerang, located 20 kilometres west of the capital Jakarta, has been named by the environment ministry as the third dirtiest city in the country, producing 1,407 cubic metres of waste a day. Most of that is dumped in the government’s 13-hectare Rawa Kucing dumpsite, but there are only 1.5 hectares of space left there.
Thus, people like Nasrulloh (one name) saw a business opportunity in the shortage of space and turned their land into dumpsites. In Taman Asri here, Nasrulloh runs a 7,000-square metre illegal dumpsite.
'I don’t want to say the garbage business isn’t profitable. And I also help the city government handle the garbage,' said Nasrulloh.
Everyday, 47 trucks dump garbage coming from various neighbourhoods and a hospital. The dumpsite fees vary, depending on frequency of use. For instance, the trucks that bring waste thrice a day pay the equivalent of 30 U.S. dollars a month.
The illegal dumpsite also rents space out to waste pickers. The 20 families who occupy 500 square metres on the site pay rent totalling 700 dollars a year.
But what brings Nasrulloh income and relieves households of their waste is also hurting the community. The burning of waste twice a day at the illegal dumpsite sends thick plumes of black smoke and pollution into the air.
Residents like Asvin Elliyana say pollution caused incessant coughing years ago in her daughter Matyam Casimira Kinanti, who was then two. She and her husband, Hari Nugroho, brought their child from one specialist to another. In the end, Matyam was diagnosed to have 20 kinds of allergies triggered by smoke and air pollution.
'Is your house located near the highway?' the physician had asked the parents, suspecting that Kinanti might have inhaled dust and exhaust from vehicles. 'Not really,' Hari Nugroho had replied, but added that they live not far from Nasrulloh’s dumpsite.
Health problems like Matyam’s come as no surprise to experts like Armi Susandi of the Indonesian National Climate Change Council. He says that apart from the pollution it causes, open dumping is the worst way of handling waste because it produces and releases methane, which traps 20 more times heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide does.
'The average methane growth in the atmosphere during past 10 years was 20 percent faster than carbon dioxide. It increased faster because a lot of countries have tried to cut their carbon dioxide emissions, but forgot about methane,' Susandi said.
The danger of methane build-up was proven in Cimahi city in 2007. The wasteyards in Leuwi Gajah district blew up in the middle of the night, triggered by methane trapped inside garbage piles. Fifty-five waste pickers were killed in that incident.
Nasrulloh says he fully understands the danger — which is why he burns the waste in his dumpsite twice a day.
Furious residents are threatening to sue Nasrulloh. They have already sent a complaint letter to the city government and the environment ministry and after that, district waste management supervisor Haris Mangsur barred Nasrulloh from burning garbage.
But what was meant to be a solution did not exactly turn out to be that.
The waste at Nasrulloh’s dumpsite was to be picked up four to five times a day so he would no longer burn garbage, and he was to pay the equivalent of 300 dollars a month to the city government for this pick-up service.
But the drivers of the government’s waste trucks were not happy with the ‘extra’ duties and began extracting a ‘tip’ of 1,500 rupiah (16 cents) a month from each of the 47 waste trucks using Nasrulloh’s dumpsite. 'Every time they come, we also have to give them energy drinks and cigarettes,' added Ujang, who helps unload waste from trucks.
Even with the bribe, the trucks would come only once a day. This was because the city government only has 20 trucks serving three districts, Mangsur explains.
In October last year, environment officers tried another solution and showed Nasrulloh how to reprocess waste in order to discourage him from burning garbage. Reprocessing, they thought, should lead to a system where inorganic garbage would be left for waste pickers to sell and organic waste is processed to become fertiliser.
'But it will cost me more with the machine and diesel that I have to buy every day,' Nasrulloh pointed out. Still, climate change experts like Susandi say the government must provide more incentives for alternatives in order to discourage unsustainable, unhealthy practices like burning garbage. If the government pushed organic farming for instance, he says, there would be a higher demand for organic fertiliser that in turn gives economic rationale for Nasrulloh to recycle waste.
But right now, Nasrulloh does not see why he should do this. Residents of Taman Asri meantime are also intent on staying in their homes. Said Hari Nugroho: 'I will continue to fight so my children can breathe.'
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service