Wasted opportunity to manage e-trash

Tifa Asrianti, The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sat, 05/03/2008 11:14 AM

 

What happens to used batteries after being dumped into a waste bin and forgotten about? With a metal jacket and a polyethylene gasket, you cannot expect a battery to just shrink into the soil and become fertilizer.

 

"With the absence of a proper waste treatment system in the country, there is only a fifty-fifty chance hazardous waste goes to proper processing plants rather than littering our rivers and soil," said Emma Rachmawaty, assistant deputy minister for hazardous waste management department at the Environment Ministry, during a discussion on electronic waste (e-waste) on Thursday.

 

Her calculation is based on a 2006 statistic which says only 50 to 60 percent of the 7 million tons of annual hazardous waste was being processed properly. The rest was disposed of at legal dumping sites.

 

There should be a mass movement in the country to collect the hazardous waste from residential areas, sending it to processing sites, Emma said.

 

"In other countries, consumers can return the used batteries and lamps to stores. I've met several producers here. Most of them are willing to open a counter to accept used electronic goods, such as batteries and lamps. They just don't want to put such services in place because no regulation requires them to do so," she said.

 

Furthermore, the absence of proper e-waste treatment has opened the opportunity for other countries to dump their waste in Indonesia, she said.

 

The Environment Ministry will soon issue a regulation on e-waste management to encourage more hazardous waste processing companies, Emma said.

 

"The regulation will also help ease the permit procedure for the establishing waste processing company, which is expected to encourage the number of such companies to grow," Emma said.

 

The regulation would require the producers of electronic stuffs to manage the waste produced from their products.

 

In Greater Jakarta, there is at least one company, PT Prasadha Pamunah Limbah Industri (PPLI), providing disposal services for hazardous waste and other kind of waste management processes.

 

The Bogor-based company, which has operated since 1994, is 95 percent owned by Modern Asia Environmental Holdings and 5 percent by the government through the ministry.

 

Selamet Daroyni from the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Environment Forum (Walhi) said both the government and the Jakarta administration should monitor waste processing closely so no one would break the regulation.

 

A few years ago, his organization found cases in Bekasi and North Jakarta, in which several individuals assured ISO holder companies to process the companies' waste at a cheaper price instead of sending the waste to PPLI, he said.

 

"The companies had to provide Rp 250 million (around US$27,000) to process one ton of hazardous waste in PPLI, while these individuals offered Rp 100 million. It turned out that they threw the waste into the river," he said.

 

Selamet said Walhi did not have data to say what the total number of hazardous waste in Jakarta was, but he believed e-waste was yet to be processed properly because waste control has been low.

 

"The low level of control has resulted in hazardous waste, produced by household and industry, entering the Bantar Gebang dumping site instead of PPLI," he said.