Surabaya, East Java

With more than 270 million people in 2021, Indonesia is one of the most populated developing countries in the world. Almost half of the population lives in cities, resulting in massive municipal waste.  Due to the overcapacity of existing landfills, municipal waste management remains a challenge in many regions of Indonesia.

Concerning the above challenge, the Indonesian government has chosen seven cities to operate city waste management plants set down in Presidential Regulation Number 18 of 2016. This is also in accordance with Presidential Regulation No 35/2018, which calls for the adoption of waste-to-energy (WtE) plants to be accelerated in Indonesia. Out of the seven cities, the first completed waste management plant is Benowo Landfill, East Java, Surabaya.

Benowo landfill is an area of the 37-hectare waste power plant comprising waste disposal capacity ranging from 1,300 to 1,500 tons daily. Due to this high volume of excessive waste, public participation is required to minimise the quantity of waste by up to 20 per cent. This can be achieved if a society actively implements the 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) waste management concept.

UCLG ASPAC, as the host of GCoM SEA Secretariat, congrats its active member, Surabaya municipality for their efforts in getting the waste-to-energy plant up and running. This is also a good example of collaborative practice between the national and local level governments that makes the programme well implemented.

 

Sources:

Azis, Muhammad M., Jonas Kristanto, and Chandra W. Purnomo. 2021. “A Techno-Economic Evaluation of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Conversion to Energy in Indonesia” Sustainability 13, no. 13: 7232. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137232

UCLG ASPAC. 2021. “Surabaya: Breaking through Challenges, Launching the First Waste-to-Energy Plant in Indonesia”. Retrieved from https://uclg-aspac.org/en/surabaya-breaking-through-challenges-launching-first-waste-to-energy-plant-in-indonesia/

Medcom.id. 2021. “Benowo Waste-to-Energy Plant Inaugurated”. Retrieved from https://www.medcom.id/english/national/5b2e4GeN-benowo-waste-to-energy-plant-inaugurated