When optimized, organic waste management can lead to reduction of 10.92 million tons of waste ending up in landfills annually, official say.

Our waste can be sorted at home for a variety of reasons, including economic gain, environmental health, and even reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

One way of sustainable living that has been practiced by a family welfare empowerment group (PKK) in Penggilingan, East Jakarta, after they established a compost cooperative in 2021 — an initiative prompted by the interest of housewives in the community in gardening during the Covid-19 pandemic when movement restrictions were in place.

This compost cooperative later became a learning site for members to learn to sort their food waste and process them into compost.

Shanti Syahril, an initiator of the PKK in neighborhood 16 in Penggilingan says the communal compost processing starts with picking up the sorted food waste from households in the area and gathering fallen leaves and dead tree branches, chopping them into small bits and mixing them to use to produce compost.

It then takes four to six weeks for the compost to form. 

This cooperative also developed its own data-based waste pick up system. They employed local youth as data collectors who weigh and note the collected food waste.

“We believe data is powerful and can reflect the contribution of members in the sorting practice,” Shanti said during the Pojok Iklim discussion in Jakarta on February 22, 2023.

In 2022, the compost cooperative collected 14 tons of food waste — about 300 kilograms per week — an amount that would make two tons of compost, 39 percent of which was distributed among members, 39 percent were sold, and the remaining was used for promotional and other purposes.

“Speaking of climate change and greenhouse gas emission, we believe the communal compost system is environmentally friendly because we use bicycles (to collect waste) which do not emit any emission,” Shanti added.

Meanwhile in Depok, West Java, since 2014, the city administration has developed a program called Partai Ember (short for the Indonesian words economic, easy and clean) or translates as Bucket Party, whose mission is also to process food waste into compost.

Sidik Mulyono, Depok Municipal Assistant for  Economy and Development said that this processing system is started by placing food waste into designated containers in each household then later transferring them to large bins at meeting points designated by the municipal authority.

Sidik Mulyono, District Assistant for Economy and Development of Depok City Administration, each household will have their own container of organic waste, which then will be taken to a central collecting point assigned by the city administration.

Every two days the food waste will be collected by the staff of local waste processing unit (UPS). At the UPS headquarter, they will weigh, sort, chop, and ferment the collected food waste which will turn into compost and ready for use, 14 days later.

“Today, 220 of the 920 neighborhoods there are now members of Partai Ember, there are 12 UPS and the waste processing capacity of (each) UPS is around 90-120 tons per day,” Mulyono said.

Although this program has been going on for almost 10 years, the Depok City administration believes the Partai Ember program needs continuous improvements. For example, reducing the amount of garbage left at UPS sites that produces emission and bad smell, or equip waste transporting vehicles with grinder machine.

“Then the transported garbage will already be half mushy when it arrives at the UPS and could therefore be immediately processed into feedstocks for maggots or composts,” Mulyaono said.

“So the waste that is transported is already semi-pureed and it can be immediately processed when it arrives at UPS. Some become magot feed, some are composted,” said Mulyono.

The bucket program has become important in reducing garbage piles in Depok which in 2022 has reached 488,370 tons or 1,338 tons per day. The 17 hectare Cipayung landfill only has the capacity to receive 900-1,000 tons of garbage per day.

Mulyono added that waste is fourth main contributor of emissions in Depok with 347.07 Gg CO2eq or 7.76 percent of the city’s total emissions. Road transportation contributes 2,216.07 Gg CO2eq (49.5 percent), power supply with 1,131 Gg CO2eq (25.28 percent) and gas in residential areas 856.38 Gg CO2eq (13.09 percent).

Efforts to reduce emissions

Food waste produces methane gas (CH4), which has a capability of capturing heath in the atmosphere 25 times higher than CO2. Thus, reducing emission from this sector has become a priority for the environment ministry through an upstream to downstream waste management strategy.

Rosa Vivien Ratnawati, Director General for the Management of Garbage, Waste and Toxic Materials (PSLB3)  of the environment ministry explained in 2022 Indonesia produced 68.7 million tons of waste, 41.7 percent of that in the form of food waste and 32.28 percent of household garbage.

“When we talk about organic waste in Indonesia, there are two things that need to be improved. First, the sorting out of organic waste and second, how to reduce organic waste that ends up at landfills that produces emissions,” Ratnawati said,

In an effort to reduce downstream waste problems, the government is said to optimize the waste management value chain, starting with strengthening the practice of sorting waste from homes, and encouraging the industrialization of waste processing.

Efforts would be made to halt illegal burning (of waste) which emits greenhouse gasses, by 2031. By 2050, the government will start to use methane as an energy source.

Rosa Vivien Ratnawati, Director General for Garbage, Waste and toxic Materials Management, Environment and forestry ministry

And on the downstream side, the government plans to stop building landfills across Indonesia by 2030. Waste in landfills will be managed using the landfill mining method with the hope that the treatment sites can maintain longer shelf life, reused, and serve other environmental purposes.

“Efforts would be made to halt illegal burning (of waste) which emits greenhouse gasses, by 2031,” Ratnawati said, adding that “by 2050, the government will start to use methane as an energy source.”

She estimated that if organic waste management is optimized, it would mean reducing 10.92 million waste that end up in landfills annually. Also, contributing to reducing 6.834 million tons of CO2eq.

Rosa believes that the practice of sorting waste from home is a trivial task that has a huge impact on environmental health.

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