Indonesia looks to incinerator to manage its waste in major landfills. While waste pickers want better empowerment, fair wages, and access to social and health services.
Since the opening of Japan’s first modern incinerator in Osaka in the 1960s and the rapid expansion of incineration alongside the country’s rapid economic – and waste – growth in the 1970s and 80s, the majority of Japan’s waste has been destined for incineration.
But today, with over 1000 incinerators operating alongside declining waste due to increased recycling and an aging population, there is little appetite for more burning. So, with the support of the government, companies like Hitachi Zosen, Marubeni, JFE Engineering and Itochu are looking to export Japanese incineration technology to a region facing a growing waste crisis – Southeast Asia, including Indonesia.
But in Indonesia, workers, activists, and environmentalists are growing increasingly concerned about pollution, livelihoods, and whether burning is really as clean as proponents argue it is.
“Many countries in Asia are panicking because there is no space to build new landfills, and trying to compensate for it by building an incinerator,” said Yobel Novian Putra, an Indonesia-based campaigner with GAIA-Asia Pacific, a non-profit opposing incineration. “Waste is a big problem, but they are investing in the wrong solution, and potentially wasting a lot of time and money.”
If incineration is exported, it is unlikely it will come with Japan’s strict pollution controls, or unionized worker model. In Southeast Asia, waste collectors are, unlike in Japan, not represented by a labor union. In fact, they aren’t even paid regular wages.
In countries like Indonesia, millions of informal waste pickers are the ones collecting, sorting, and segregating waste, making money only from what is recyclable or reusable, and are often from the most marginalized members of society.
“There are many waste pickers in Indonesia and they have reduced waste by themselves,” said Pris Polly Lengkong, Chairman of the Indonesian Waste Pickers Union (Ikatan Pemulung Indonesia).
It’s not just Indonesia. In Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, governments are pushing incineration as a solution to growing plastic waste management challenges across the region.
With stories about rivers clogged or wildlife choking on plastic making global headlines, at least 30 incinerators are newly opened, under construction, or planned in these three countries alone.
Japan is playing a leading role in this. In 2019, when the country hosted the G20 Summit, the government pushed incineration as part of marine litter reduction efforts.
Since then, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Japanese International Cooperative Agency, and the Kitakyushu International Techno-cooperative Association, have been working in Southeast Asia to promote incineration in cities like Davao and Cebu in the Philippines, and Bandung and Surabaya in Indonesia.
One reason might be that Japan’s market is saturated. Even in Tokyo, waste generation peaked in 1989 at 4.9 million tons, falling to less than 3.0 million tons in 2019.
“Maybe the number of waste to energy plants is reduced in the future,” said Takaoka.
For companies like Hitachi Zosen and Marubeni, that means they must look overseas to continue selling incineration technology, with support from the government.
Exporting Japan’s model
The 1000-plus incinerators across Japan are often promoted as a model for sustainable waste management around the world. The fact that, in major cities, so many incinerators are often located in residential areas is shown as a sign of broad public acceptance.
However, prior to 2000, incineration faced ample opposition from local communities and environmentalists in Japan. Burning waste produces numerous dangerous pollutants, including dioxins, which, according to the World Health Organization, is linked to impairment of the immune system, the developing nervous system, the endocrine system and reproductive functions.
“Japanese citizens opposed the construction of waste to energy plants especially before 2000. We had a serious issue of dioxin emissions,” said Takaoka Masaki a professor and chair of the Waste to Energy Research Council at Kyoto University. “But pollution control has improved, so now there is [less] emission from the waste to energy plants, so many citizens accept it.”
Dioxin concerns were common in the 1990s, even garnering global attention. In 2000, protests took place at Suginami Incinerator in Tokyo, where at least 400 locals were sickened due to pollution.
This forced the government to pass strict regulations on dioxin emissions, which led to incinerators, including Suginami, to be rebuilt or retrofitted with better pollution control technology.
The impact can be seen in plants such as the Tamagawa Incinerator in Ota, Tokyo. There, during a site visit, a technician noted that the pollution controls at the plant cost twice as much as the trash-burning incinerator itself. This, in turn, makes incineration costly, among the most expensive ways to generate electricity in the world.
Also important to Tokyo’s incinerators operating safely and cleanly are the workers who run them. This includes the collectors who gather waste, which must be well segregated in order for incinerators to run efficiently, to the highly skilled staff working alongside the incinerator and pollution controls. Many are represented by the Tokyo Sanitation Workers Union.
Impact on waste pickers and air quality
The first incinerator is already open, in Bantargebang, Bekasi, a suburb of the capital Jakarta. It is operated by the government and a private company, PT Jakarta Propertindo, and received Japanese government support Thus far, workers have not been involved at all.
Lengkong is also concerned that the technology Indonesia is getting may not be as clean or modern as those operating in Tokyo.
“If I am not mistaken, Japanese technology from 20 years ago is being installed in Indonesia. Japan is no longer using it,” said Lengkong.
Lengkong’s organization, which is a member of the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers, is fighting for waste pickers to be recognized for the work they do to reduce and manage waste in growing megacities like Jakarta.
And he sees a direct threat from incineration, which, he fears, will harm the livelihoods of waste pickers by removing their access to landfills. The Japanese International Cooperation Agency is supporting another project currently being planned in Cilacap, Central Java.
There are also environmental concerns. According to GAIA-Asia Pacific, pollution controls and monitoring requirements are far weaker in Southeast Asia than in Japan, and there are concerns that, in order to lower costs, pollution control technology will be sacrificed.
A spokesperson from Hitachi Zosen, which provides technology for dozens of incinerators in Asia and is looking to export to both Indonesia and Thailand, noted that they only follow local pollution rules, not those of Japan.
“It’s waste colonialism,” said Putra. “They push a lower standard in Southeast Asia, and it’s frustrating. We don’t have a right over what we want.”
For Lengkong, he has a simple request for officials both in Indonesia, but also from overseas. Instead of importing an expensive, dangerous technology, why not empower waste pickers to solve the waste crisis?
“Why spend money on incinerators that cost billions of rupiah?” said Lengkong. “It is such a waste of money. It is better to be used on how to help waste pickers prosper.” He noted how they manage and reduce waste despite limited resources, and imagines how, with proper training on waste sorting, or composting, fair wages, and access to health and social services, they could do so much more.
“These are more humane, wiser ways for governments to [address waste] than technology that wastes money,” said Pris.
This article was developed with the support of JournalismFund.eu and was first published by Unfiltered on 30 October 2022. It has been edited for clarity and context.