Hongkongers pooh-pooh waste treatment plant, despite free spa

Yahoo – AFP, May 26, 2016

The three mineral-infused pools in the glass-walled spa, each with a different
temperature, are powered by the heat from the burning sludge (AFP Photo/
Isaac Lawrence)

Hong Kong (AFP) - It is billed as a groundbreaking way to deal with Hong Kong's human waste, and even includes an onsite spa free to residents, but a new eco-friendly sludge treatment plant has not washed with some locals.

The sustainable T-Park development blends into coastal hills near the town of Tuen Mun in the north of Hong Kong, a sleek low-rise building with a roof shaped like a wave.

Each day, the HK$5 billion ($644 million) plant treats 1,200 tonnes of sludge from the city's wastewater treatment plants to avoid it being dumped in Hong Kong's overflowing landfills.

"We can live together in a dense city 

without making the planet dirty," said 

Antoine Frerot, chairman of Veolia 

(AFP Photo/Isaac Lawrence)

The plant desalinates its own seawater and powers itself by the energy created from burning organic waste in what is the world's largest sludge incinerator.

Built by French management giant Veolia, city officials say it is "one of the most technologically advanced facilities" of its kind and will not emit pollutants.

But locals who already complain about smells emanating from a nearby landfill have protested against bringing yet more waste into the area.

And the building of a free onsite spa has been dismissed by some as a rubbish idea.

The three mineral-infused pools in the glass-walled spa, each with a different temperature, are powered by the heat from the burning sludge.

Seawater used for the pools is first desalinated at the plant and visitors can look out over ocean views as they soak.

They can also have a tour of the plant as part of their trip.

"Pure water is a symbol of purity," Antoine Frerot, chairman of Veolia, told AFP during a tour of the plant by French minister for foreign trade Matthias Fekl Wednesday.

"We can live together in a dense city without making the planet dirty."

However, Cheng Wai-kwan, 49, who lives in a village close to the plant said the spa was less than tempting.

"If I tell you I have a spa near home which is powered by burning rubbish, I don't think anyone would come," he told AFP.

He was among 40 villagers who protested at the site during the plant's official opening ceremony last week.

T-Park, the new sludge treatment facility in Tuen Mun in Hong Kong (AFP

 Photo/Isaac Lawrence)

The spa is due to open to the public next month.

Cheng said hundreds of villagers living nearby were fed up with the smell of the nearby landfill, and he worried it would get worse.

"Basically, you will have tonnes of shit brought to our district every single day. However beautifully it is being packaged, I don't think it is benefiting us," Cheng added.

A Tuen Mun district councillor said locals had never agreed to have the plant being built in their backyard.

"The government is using the spa as a compensation but I don't think it's enough," said Ho Hang-mui.

"Residents already have to shut their windows (because of the landfill). Even if the spa is free I don't think people will be able to enjoy it," she added.

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Drowning in Garbage, Jakarta Could Look to Taipei for a Clean Example

Jakarta Globe, Heru Andriyanto, June 23, 2010

A garbage collector smoking a cigarette while working at the Bantar Gebang landfill, Bekasi. (JG Photo/Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)

Taipei. Disposing of garbage hardly sounds like a great time to socialize with friends and neighbors, but a novel approach to waste management in the bustling Taiwanese capital, Taipei, is proving otherwise.

The Taipei metropolitan area, home to 6.7 million people, enforces a “No waste drop” policy that bans residents from littering and encourages them to bring out their garbage to dump trucks.

The mandatory trash policy got off to a slow start, but now most residents, from company executives to market traders to housewives and their Indonesian maids, can be seen out on the curb at night, chatting while waiting for the trucks to come by.

“After coming home from work and having dinner, I get to bring the trash out,” said Taipei native Tommy Lee, who currently works in Jakarta. “I really enjoy the precious few minutes of talking with my neighbors.

“I notice that migrant workers from the Philippines and Indonesia also use the occasion to meet with their friends,” he adds. “Like me, they look a little bit sad when the 9 p.m. truck is gone and the conversations have to end.”

Just a decade ago, Taipei struggled with the problem of littering. In July 2000, the city authorities introduced the “pay as you throw” policy in which residents were charged based on the amount of waste for collection.

They are now required to use only specially designated garbage bags.

Initially, most residents refused to buy these bags, instead using the free plastic bags they accumulated from shopping trips.

Police officers were then assigned to each dump truck to ensure they picked up only the designated trash bags, and residents who did not comply were fined on the spot.

Another problem was that most residents would just leave their garbage bags out on the curb or at pick-up points before leaving for work in the morning.

When the garbage trucks came by at night, there were heaps of reeking trash piled up along the streets.

That led authorities to implement a policy that no trash was allowed to touch the ground.

Residents were thus obliged to personally hand over their trash bags to the truck operators or dispose of their recyclable items in special bins provided by the city.

Sorting out recyclables from regular trash also saves residents money because the volume of the waste collected by the trucks goes down accordingly.

Meanwhile, bulky items such as furniture or tires are collected by different trucks on an appointment basis.

The Taipei authorities continue to tweak the program. Now, kitchen waste is to be collected separately to be used as pig feed or compost.

As for the rest of the garbage, it heads to the massive Beitou incinerator. The facility, sprawled over 10.6 hectares, can process 1,800 tons of waste a day. And it’s hardly a dump.

It has a swimming pool, children’s playground, employees’ dormitory and administration offices.

The main building, which houses the incinerator, is arguable the only one of its kind to boast a revolving restaurant and space observatory near the top of its 150-meter-high stack.

Around 95 percent of the garbage collected from Taipei residents is incinerated, while the rest ends up in a landfill.

Even here, little goes to waste. The incinerator burns the garbage at 1,050 degrees Celsius, and the bottom ash is processed to make paving blocks or bricks.

The results of this decade-long waste-management revolution are evident across the city, which is almost spotlessly free from litter, even in the busy public markets.

The city takes its garbage very seriously. For instance, the authorities have imposed restrictions on plastic shopping bags at supermarkets and other retail outlets, in a bid to limit the amount of non-recyclable waste.

By contrast, Jakarta, home to 13 million people by day, is still struggling to find enough space to dispose of the 6,500 tons of garbage produced each day.

Eko Bharuna, the head of the city’s waste-disposal office, says the authorities may be forced to build a new landfill in neighboring Tangerang to accommodate the ever-increasing waste output that can no longer be handled by the Bantar Gebang landfill in Bekasi.

The city also plans to set up three other landfills in the North Jakarta neighborhoods of Cakung, Sunter and Marunda as part of its 20-year waste-management plan.

However, this ostensibly long-term vision will only provide a short-term solution unless the problem of littering is properly addressed and legislation enacted to fix it.

Setting up new dumps will also invariably incite protests from local residents.

In November 2004, protests in the Bogor area over the planned creation of a landfill there turned violent, and ended with the police shooting and wounding five villagers.

Negotiations for the Tangerang facility began early last year, but the authorities there have stopped short of approving the plan because of protests from residents.

Taipei’s success story suggests it will take more than just throwing money at the problem to fix it.

Effective waste management calls for innovative and far-reaching ideas, public participation, changes in personal habits to stop littering, strong political commitment from both the municipal authorities and the City Council and even coercive legislation.

Jakarta may have the money, but is woefully lacking in everything else.

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Benowo residents advised not to drink `polluted' well water

Indra Harsaputra, THE JAKARTA POST, Surabaya | Fri, 10/23/2009 12:11 PM | East Java

Residents living near the Benowo dump site in Surabaya have been warned against consuming ground water from their wells, which the local environment agency said have been polluted by waste from the landfill.

"We have conducted several research projects on the residents' wells and found that their wells contained poisonous substances, which could endanger their health," East Java environment agency head Dewi Putriani said recently.

Speaking in Surabaya, East Java, she said water from the wells around the landfill site could not be consumed, as it could potentially cause brain cancer.

Dewi said the pollution was produced by alkali-tainted water from the garbage infiltrating the soil and then streaming into the river when it rained. "As well as polluting wells and rivers, the alkali can be absorbed by plant roots. It will be dangerous if alkali is absorbed by - for example - spinach, which is then consumed by people," she said.

"It will endanger their health, just as if they consume water from wells around the landfill," she added.

The pollution was actually detected in 2004, when fish in ponds around the landfill site were found dead. People around Benowo had previously protested against the moving of the garbage dump from Keputih to Benowo, but their demands went unheeded. Dewi said the condition of the Benowo landfill was getting worse as it had to hold all the garbage produced by some 3.7 million households in Surabaya.

The existence of the Benowo landfill is vital for city residents after the Keputih dump site in Surabaya was closed in 2001. Since then, all household garbage has been dumped at the Benowo landfill. The city's households produce 2,500 tons of garbage per day; however, Benowo can only accommodate 1,400 tons per day.

Dewi said this inability to manage the waste properly had caused residents' wells to become polluted by dangerous materials or liquids.

The Surabaya municipal administration has built waste processing installations and introduced several programs to alleviate the problem, including encouraging residents in the city to separate wet and dry garbage. However, the programs are not yet effective enough to overcome the city's waste disposal problem, as the volume of garbage continues to increase in line with the increasing number of local residents.

Surabaya waste and sanitation management head Aditya Wasita said, with its daily capacity of 1,400 tons of garbage, the 37,000-hectare Benowo landfill site was expected to be full within the next four or five years.

Palembang set to process waste to fix power crisis

Khairul Saleh, THE JAKARTA POST, PALEMBANG | Sat, 01/17/2009 5:24 PM  

The Palembang municipality in South Sumatra is planning to build a garbage-based power generating station in an effort to address waste management issues as well as the chronic power crisis in the city, a senior official said recently. 

The assistant to the City Secretary on planning and economic affairs, Apriadi S. Busri, said the project expected to address power shortages in Palembang. 

He said the station would be located at major landfill dumping sites in Kramasan, Kertapati, or Sukawinatan in Sukarami district, as the project required such huge volumes of garbage to operate. 

"Waste management will apply three methods reuse, reduce and recycle by sorting organic and nonorganic waste," he said. 

Besides processing garbage into fertilizer and methane gas to feed the power plant, the planned landfill areas have been set aside as future recreation areas, provided the recycling and sanitation processes operate smoothly. 

"A special drainage system will be built at the Kramasan landfill so that garbage can be deposited underground and processed into methane to then generate electricity," said Apriadi. 

The central government has provided Rp 5 billion (US$453,000) in funding for the project and also for a waste water processing plant. 

The municipality has appointed Japanese consortium PT Gikoko Kogyo Indonesia to produce methane at the Sukawinatan landfill. 

"We have signed a working contract with PT Gikoko. They are now waiting for their equipment to arrive so production can begin," said Apriadi. 

Palembang City Sanitation Agency head Zulfikri Simin said power generation from waste was feasible, provided there was a minimum supply of 500 tons of garbage per day, the equivalent of generating 2 megawatts of power. 

However, the municipality has been hampered by the limited number of garbage trucks in the area and the lack of overall transportation capacity. Sanitary workers can only transport between 3,000 and 5,000 cubic meters of garbage to the Sukawitan and Karya Jaya landfills per day. 

Zulfikri said PT Gikoko had been somewhat slow in beginning the process of converting waste to methane gas, considering operations were supposed to have started at the end of last year. 

The company is currently carrying out excavation work at landfills, collecting waste which will then be processed into methane.

Residents protest waste plan

The Jakarta Post, Depok | Tue, 12/30/2008 11:02 AM 

 

The Depok administration's efforts to tackle the regency's waste problems by setting up waste-processing units (UPS) in residential areas have hit upon a stumbling block after hundreds of residents objected to the project.

 

Residents of Bukit Rivaria in Sawangan, Depok, protested against the construction of a UPS in their neighborhood, saying the administration had failed to consult with them on the matter, thus violating a 2008 law on waste management.

 

"We basically support the program, but there was no dialogue held with the residents before the administration set up the UPS in our neighborhood," Totok Towel, a resident, said recently.

 

The UPS is a 30-meter by 40-meter composting plant that also recycles inorganic waste from residential areas. Each unit can process 40 cubic meters of waste per day.

 

Totok said the UPS was located only 40 meters away from the nearest resident's home, adding the amount of waste produced daily by the residents was only 4 to 7 cubic meters.

 

"We are worried that trash from outside our area will be brought in to meet the UPS' processing capacity, thus piling up and ruining the beauty of our parks; moreover, it will jeopardize the health of residents," he said.

 

He added social problems could arise if trash pickers began flocking to the neighborhood to look for waste, disrupting the area's security in the process.

 

According to an environmental impact analysis, the project must be located at least a kilometer from residential areas, Totok added.

 

"The developers are also responsible for this mess, because they told us they were building a public facility here for the residents, but it's turned out to be a garbage dump," he said.

 

"We are not going anywhere if the UPS begins operating, because we can't afford to look for new homes," he said.

 

Fuad, head of the Rivaria residents community group (Iwari), said the residents had taken up the issue with the mayor's office and held three demonstrations to get the administration and developers to move the UPS elsewhere.

 

"If that doesn't work, we'll take this matter to court," he said.

 

He also said the developer had agreed to meet the residents' demands.

 

Around 1,000 families live in the area that could be affected by the problems caused by the UPS, he added.

 

Yusmanto, head of the Depok Sanitation and Environmental Agency's facility division, said the regency's landfill in Citayam was reaching overcapacity, thus making the construction of 60 UPS in residential areas crucial.

 

"The 10.6-hectare Citayam landfill must take around 4.2 million kilograms of trash per day, and it can't take that much longer. Therefore we need the UPS to lessen the burden on the landfill," he said.

 

He added the administration had met with community unit heads from Bukit Rivaria on Nov. 21 at the subdistrict office to discuss the UPS project.

 

"The reason we set up the UPS in residential areas is because the concept of the UPS is to recycle trash from households straight away," he said, adding it was for residents' own good.

 

Yusmanto also said residents had misidentified the UPS as a landfill, saying they should not worry about potential trash heaps because the UPS would not recycle more trash than the community could produce.

 

He added the waste would immediately be put in grinders and made into compost, which the residents could then use.

 

The administration will continue with the project, he went on, following the success of a pilot project. The first phase is expected to be complete by the end of the year.

 

"Our UPS pilot project in Sukatani village, Depok, has proven successful in reducing trash and helping the environment, without any residents complaining," Yusmanto said.

 

He added there were four stages in the UPS project under the regency's midterm plan. The first stage is the building of 20 UPS this year, 10 more next year, and another 30 within the next two years. The project will cost the regency an estimated Rp 17 billion (US$ 1.5 million).

WB, firm deal on carbon trading

Adianto P. Simamora , The Jakarta Post , Bekasi | Tue, 03/04/2008 11:11am

The World Bank and PT Gikoko Kogyo Indonesia signed an agreement Monday to develop an eco-friendly project that will trap climate pollutants released from the Sumur Batu sanitary landfill in Bekasi.

Under the agreement, the World Bank, acting as trustee of the Netherlands' Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Facility, will purchase 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year for 15 years.

"This project, together with the growing number of CDM projects in Indonesia, is an indication of the critical role the country is playing in addressing climate change," Joachim von Amsberg, World Bank director for Indonesia, said during the launch ceremony here.

The daily management of the landfill gas flaring project, aimed to harvest methane gas from solid waste in Sumur Batu landfill, would be run by Gikoko.

"The CDM enables Gikoko and Bekasi municipality to enter into private-public partnership in waste management to convert a liability with investment into a cash stream utilizing the Kyoto Protocol," said Joseph Hwang, production director of Gikoko.

Methane is a greenhouse gas that is potentially 21 times more harmful than CO2, the main contributor to global warming.

Carbon trading is part of the Kyoto Protocol allowing developing countries, including Indonesia, to reduce emissions.

The host of the CDM project will receive certified emission reduction (CER) credits issued by the United Nations executive board. The credits are traded in 38 developed nations that have the obligation to cut emissions between 2008 and 2012 by 5.2 percent below their 1990 levels.

The government of the Netherlands, which purchased the credits from the Bekasi landfill, is among the developed countries which are required to cut their emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.

One CER credit is equal to one ton of CO2 priced between US$5 and $10.

The UN Executive Board has approved 819 carbon reduction projects worldwide to begin in October -- 34 percent in India and 15 percent in China.

Indonesia, which ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2004, listed only nine projects with the executive board. The government has so far approved 40 carbon trading projects. Most of them are related to the energy sector.

The UN reported that developing countries produced nearly 450 tons of CO2 and CER credits in 2006, with China still leading at 61 percent of the total.

The World Bank said the global carbon market was worth less than $1 billion in 2004 but skyrocketed to $11 billion in 2005 and to more than $30 billion last year.

The Bekasi administration said 7 percent of the funds generated from the carbon trading project would be used to develop communities living near landfill areas.

"The revenue will support community development in Sumur Batu. In addition, 10 percent of the revenue will be added to the local budget," Bekasi city secretary Chandra Utama Effendi said.

He said the Sumur Batu landfill received about 700 cubic meters of solid waste per day in the 10,000-hectare area, located along the northeast border of Bantar Gebang which belongs to the Jakarta administration.

Gikoko also expressed concerns about the United Nation's bureaucracy in validating the CDM project."

The bureaucratic process is still too long. We have to wait about six months for validation to determine whether or not the UN approves the project. We hope the UN can improve its efficiency and encourage more private companies and local administrations to host CDM projects," Hwang said.

Palembang to have compost plant soon

Palembang, S Sumatra (ANTARA News) - PT Organic Recovery Group Indonesia, a subsidiary of an Australian company, will soon build a compost plant in Palembang, capital of South Sumatra province, at a cost of US$1.5 billion.

The plant, to be built on two hectares of land near the Sukawinatan landfill, was expected to start operating in July 2008, the company`s director, Richard Lee, said Thursday after signing a memorandum of understanding with Palembang Mayor Eddy Santana Putra on the construction of the project.

Lee said the plant would have a production capacity of 40 tons a day or 12,000 tons a year in the early days of its operation.

The company would sell most of its products to local farmers, he said adding it would also cooperate with state fertilizer company PT Pusri in marketing the products to the rest of the country.

Transforming waste into energy at Suwung Garbage dump

Prodita Sabarini, The Jakarta Post, Denpasar

The foul smell of piling garbage at the largest landfill in Bali, the Suwung landfill, has been a source of disgust for the Balinese.

Thanks to technology, however, people on the island-province can now look forward to making use of their waste.

Home to household waste from four areas of Bali - Denpasar, Badung, Gianyar and Tabanan - the landfill receives as much as 800 tons of waste per day.

As two third of the waste is organic, it releases methane gas -- the source of the "foul smell" and is one of the greenhouse gasses that contributes to global warming - to the atmosphere.

The Bali administration, working with PT Navigat Organic Energy Indonesia (NOEI), set up an integrated waste management system at Suwung by building its first biogas plant.

The plant would capture methane gasses and turn it into energy in the form of electricity. The plant will also help rehabilitate the landfill site.

"By August 2008 the facility would be able to produce two megawatts for public use," PT NOEI spokesperson Bernt Bakken said Sunday.

The facility was launched by the Bali Governor Made Dewa Beratha on Dec. 13, sporting the momentum of the United Nations Climate Change Conference that ended on Dec. 15.

It is the first project in Bali carried out under the United Nation's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) -- a carbon trade scheme that enables a group of developed countries and countries in transition, which are binding for emission cuts to earn emission reduction credits by promoting sustainable development in developing countries.

Indonesia has 11 projects under the carbon trade scheme registered at the CDM executive board so far, with only two of them approved by the board.

The biogas plant project would reduce around 123,423 tons per year of the amount of methane gasses released to the atmosphere, cutting the greenhouse gasses that contribute to global warming.

Bakken said from 2010, the facility would produce 10 Megawatts of electricity.

State Electricity Company (PLN) has signed an agreement to buy power from the biogas plant.

PT NOEI uses a Jenbacher machine, distributed by GE Energy. GE Energy country executive Gatot Prawiro said waste-to-energy conversion was a good solution to provide energy in areas that has no access to the national power grid.

Bali is still dependent on Java for power supply, with 130 Megawatts of the 439 Megawatts needed to power Bali comes from the Paiton Power Plant in East Java.

Communities learn how to treat household waste

Agnes Winarti, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Education programs are being introduced across the city to help Jakarta go green and its residents become more environmentally aware.

"We (have started) by educating residents with the simplest task of sorting out their domestic waste," said Harry Poli Riyanto from Pondok Kelapa subdistrict.

For two years, Harry has run a local composting system and he said, "Most residents aren't educated or accustomed to manage waste in their home".

The 40-year-old father of two, along with a handful of his neighbors, other residents and members of the subdistrict board, said he would expand his program at the 20,000-square-meter city forest in Jl. Haji Dogon, Pondok Kelapa, Duren Sawit, East Jakarta.

The forest today sees composted about 40 percent of its leaf waste, 30 percent of market and domestic organic waste, as well as 30 percent of animal waste from chicken, goat, cow and horse meat products.

"Raising people's awareness to sort out their domestic organic waste is a tough job, I know," Harry said.

He also said most organic waste for the composting program came from the nearby market instead of residential homes.

It is estimated a community unit (RW) with some 500 families can produce an average of 500 kg in daily waste.

There are 13 RWs in the Pondok Kelapa subdistrict and Harry, who has been living there for nine years, said an estimated 95 percent of the total 130,000 people in the area were not yet aware of the importance of waste management.

Only 20 percent of the residents are willing to sort out their organic waste from their non-organic waste, he said, "However, even the 20 percent do not always do that".

"They still need to be constantly reminded."

No residents were currently involved in the three-week process of decomposing the mix of waste into fertilizer.

Harry said the program paid two to three sanitation workers to monitor the humidity of the mixed waste piled in the city forest.

The fertilizer is then packed into 2.5 kg sacks.

"The most important thing is we want to inspire others to make an effort in creating a cleaner and greener living environment," Harry said.

He was referring to the lines of lush medication plants fertilized with compost.

They deliberately put the plants at the front yard of the subdistrict office because he said residents often relaxed there.

The compost fertilizer is currently being sold for Rp 4,000 per 2.5 kg sack to residents.

"We use the income sales to pay two to three sanitation officers, who daily monitor the piles of the composted waste in the forest."

Harry said he hoped city administration would support them by allocating funds for the program.

"We need to keep informing the public about this kind of waste management.

"At the moment we are only able to recycle the organic waste.

"We hope that one day we will also be able to process non-organic waste," Harry said.

In 2001, a similar waste recycling program operated from a small waste dump at Jl. Haji Naman, just a stone's throw from the Pondok Kelapa city forest.

The composting program, which used machines, unfortunately only lasted for about a year.

Not many residents were even aware of its about its existence at the time.

Ari, 24, who has lived in Pondok Kelapa since childhood, said she had heard of some composting programs held in areas around Jakarta, but not one in her immediate area.

Jakarta has a major garbage problem, producing more than 6,000 tons of waste per day.

Although most of the city's waste goes to the 108-hectare sanitary landfill in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi, at least 118 hectares of land in Jakarta is still occupied by garbage.

The city has one recycling plant capable of processing around 500 tons of waste in Cakung Cilincing, North Jakarta.