Let the trash battle begin

By Agnes Winarti 

Published in Bali Daily/The Jakarta Post Monday, March 11 2013

While the Balinese Hindu faithful perform a series of religious rites to welcome their sacred Day of Silence, or Nyepi, which is fast approaching, the capital city Denpasar will again silently fight its largest battle of the year — against trash. 

“Indeed it’s true. We fight our largest war against garbage every year during the Nyepi holidays,” head of trash collection services at the Denpasar Sanitation Agency Nyoman Astawa told Bali Daily on Saturday.

He acknowledged that the trash accumulated through the days of Nyepi’s series of various rituals, including Melasti (the purification), Pengerupukan (the battle against evil) and Ngembak Geni (family gathering) amounted to the largest quantity compared to that produced during other Balinese Hindu religious days, like Kuningan and Galungan.

On regular days, Denpasar produces around 2,500 cubic meters (cbm) of garbage. Astawa estimated the accumulation of trash throughout the Nyepi holidays could reach up to 6,000 cbm per day, mostly in the form of religious offerings, the remains of the ogoh-ogoh effigies burnt during the night of Pengerupukan, and household waste, both organic and inorganic.

About 4 to 5 cubic meters of trash equals 1 ton.

Manager of Cemara waste depot in Sanur Kaja village in Denpasar, Made Sunarta, recently said: “I’m having a headache with the growing amount of trash. This upcoming Nyepi, the accumulation of trash will be at its worst, as my staff will all be off for the holidays.”

During religious days, the depot usually takes at least twice the daily volume of 8 cbm of trash, equivalent to the capacity of four garbage trucks.

As Melasti already started on Friday, the volume of trash, especially along the beaches of Denpasar —Sanur, Padanggalak and Mertasari, was up to 120 cbm, triple the norm.

Nevertheless, Astawa gave his assurances that the Denpasar Sanitation and Parks Agency was ready to battle the trash. “We will deploy our emergency squads to handle the trash produced during Pengerupukan night. They will work all out until dawn on Nyepi and work again from early morning the day after Nyepi to ensure the streets are clear of rubbish,” said Astawa.

Squads of 600 sweepers and a battalion of 1,000 garbage collectors will be cleaning up the trash on 113 streets around Denpasar. The garbage collection battalion is equipped with a total of 19 garbage trucks with a capacity of up to 12 cbm each. These vehicles are deployed by both the sanitation and parks divisions at the agency.

“This is truly a war. That’s why we call our guys the emergency troops and battalion,” Astawa said.

When asked whether the local communities themselves would engage in the cleanup after the rituals, Astawa said: “Well, we cooperate with a few traditional villages, such as Sanur and Kesiman, to clean up the beaches. On a daily basis, we have also urged the residents to initiate community-based waste management and to reduce plastic use when performing their rituals.”

“But we have to understand that this is how the religious rites have always been performed in Bali. We can’t demand much from the residents. Instead, the administration is adapting to the way the Balinese perform these traditions,” said Astawan, who is also a senior pemangku (temple priest) in his village in Canggu, which is in the neighboring regency, Badung.

Last year, reportedly, a troop of 1,500 street sweepers and trash collectors were sent out. Yet, piles of trash equivalent to some four garbage trucks were left unpicked and scattered in the Sesetan area, as well as suburban streets like Jl. Gunung Agung, Jl. Supratman Timur and Jl. A. Yani.

Anyone care to join this year’s trash battle, then?

Who cares about Denpasar’s trash?

By Agnes Winarti 

Published in Bali Daily/The Jakarta Post Saturday, March 09 2013

In 2002, the Cemara waste depot in Sanur Kaja village in Denpasar was initiated by a group of some 10 housewives out of concern about their neighborhood waste. Today, some 11 years afterwards, although still operating, the initiative has not yet infected the rest of the community.

“Today, out of 30 residents, there can be only two or three who are willing to sort their waste before collection. The rest continue to leave their trash unsorted,” Wayan Winata, who drives the depot’s trash truck, as well as collects and sorts the trash, said on Friday at the Cemara depot located on Jalan Tukad Nyali No. 1 Sanur.

“Ever since this depot started, the residents have been encouraged to sort their own waste. Today, that remains as a mere discourse,” said Wayan.

Years ago, 12 people did the chores that Wayan does, but today, only five personnel are left operating the depot, while the mountain of trash continues to grow.

Cemara waste depot coordinator, who is also a founder of the local NGO Wiguna Bali, Made Sunarta, acknowledged the overwhelming situation. The Sanur Kaja village has a total of eight hamlets with 5,121 families — only 40 percent of which are willing to use Cemara waste management service.

“Most prefers to dump their trash on the streets pavements or elsewhere as the administration still provides free waste collection services. They are also still unwilling to pay any waste collection fee,” said Sunarta, whose depot charges a Rp 5,000 (51 US cents) to Rp 30,000 monthly fee depending on the volume of trash being collected.

The depot collects a total of 8-16 cubic meters of daily waste, which equals to four trucks of waste. Sunarta claims the depot is able to sort 80 percent of the organic and inorganic waste, and process the organic as compost fertilizers, while the inorganic garbage with economic value is sold to collectors of used papers, plastics and cardboard.

For years, Sunarta said that Cemara depot along with the village caretakers has conducted training for residents to independently process their organic waste into compost and to sort out their waste. “But such training never really brings much behavioral change,” he said.

“As long as the administration continues to provide free trash collection, people opt for the easy way out, which is to simply dump their trash,” he said, urging the administration to take braver action and discontinue the free service.

This year, he said that he had proposed Rp 80 million worth of budget allocation for the operation of so-called environmental monitoring personnel (Jumaling-Juru Pemantau Lingkungan) personnel, who are expected to teach residents to change their behavior in handling waste.

Separately, at the 1,000 square meter depot, Wayan and his colleague Agus, continue the impossible daily race to sift the organic and the inorganic waste before transporting the residue to the Suwung landfill.

“In the old days, we could complete sorting out the day’s trash by the end of the day. Nowadays, more and more carts of trash can not be handled properly. We are just overwhelmed. This depot is overloaded,” Wayan said. In January, the depot was overloaded by piles of untreated trash equal to the volume of 10 trash trucks, Sunarta recalled.

According to Sunarta, operation of Cemara depot since 2007, has been fully-funded by revenue obtained from the sales of compost fertilizers, the sales of plastics and cardboard garbage, and the collection fee from residents. He said that the cost of operation remains allocated at Rp 100 million per year, thus forcing the depot to cut down the numbers of its personnel from 12 to 5 people.

Cemara is not the only trash depot in the capital city. Others include the Palasari depot in Sanur Kauh village and the Cempaka depot in Ubung Kaja village, the Ubung Lestari depot in Ubung district, as well as others in Tegal Kerta, Panjer and Serangan villages.

“There are many more waste depots in Denpasar. Most of them have become inactive,” said Sunarta.

Based on last year’s Denpasar Sanitation Agency data, the city saw a total of 1,175,161 cubic meters of garbage. The agency claimed that it had successfully transported around 71 percent of the city’s garbage to the Suwung landfill. The remaining garbage was processed by the city’s garbage banks (11.2 percent), private companies (7 percent), self-management entities (3.5 percent) and PD Pasar traditional market management (2.3 percent).

Every day, around 700 tons of garbage is sent to Suwung landfill. About 45 percent of the load comes from Denpasar municipality.