Waste management can be considered the ‘gateway’ to achieving sustainable development goals because waste is a multisectoral issue impacting various aspects of society and the economy.
Professor Chandra Wahyu Purnomo, a lecturer in the Department of Chemical Engineering, UGM Faculty of Engineering (FT UGM), conveyed this during the Sekolah Wartawan session held at UGM on Wednesday (May 29).
He highlighted that waste management in Yogyakarta remains unresolved and still in an emergency.
“Although there are numerous regulations concerning waste, from national laws to local regulations, our waste management system still lags behind other countries. Especially in Yogyakarta, we are still heavily reliant on the Piyungan Final Disposal Site (TPA),” Professor Purnomo said.
The professor revealed that the failure to build a waste management ecosystem in Yogyakarta is due to the lack of public awareness of the upstream source of the waste problem.
“Waste should already be sorted at the source, starting from households, offices, factories or industries, and campuses. When waste is mixed from the source, the processing becomes more difficult,” Professor Purnomo explained.
The hope is that public participation in managing their waste will reach 30%, while government facilities handle the remaining 70%.
He mentioned that waste issues are very complex. The community has not optimized government facilities, such as TPS3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Transfer Stations) and waste banks, as 90% of Yogyakarta’s waste remains in landfills.
“Of the 30 TPS3R facilities in Sleman, all built by the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, only ten are operational; the rest are abandoned. Imagine if all TPS3R facilities in Sleman, Yogyakarta City, and Bantul were activated; it would certainly speed up the waste sorting process,” said the Indonesia Solid Waste Forum (ISWF) coordinator.
An independent study conducted by Professor Purnomo in 2021 on waste in Yogyakarta City showed that garbage reached 300 tons daily. It is estimated that this amount has stayed the same, if not increased, since then.
“The situation is already an emergency, but the public has yet to develop an awareness to sort waste, leading to new problems like new illegal dumping sites,” he said.
Professor Purnomo suggested that waste management at the source must be improved and prioritized.
“We must continue to educate the public to commit to sorting waste. If necessary, there should be social sanctions like in developed countries,” the professor said.
Next, equally important after sorting is the detailed and systematic scheduling of collection and transportation from the source directly to processing units like TPS3R and TPST (Integrated Waste Management Sites) to avoid conflicts of interest.
“Local governments or village governments should also regulate Independent waste management to prevent disputes with village-owned enterprises, some of which are now tasked with managing waste,” he advised.
According to Professor Purnomo, waste management technology based on Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) could also be considered a solution to produce fuel that can be used to minimize waste shipments outside of the Yogyakarta Special Region.
Author: Triya Andriyani
Photographer: Donnie