The Ministry of Environment for Indonesia has issued new regulations that will prevent landfill sites across Bali from receiving waste that comes from hotels, restaurants, and cafes.
The Director of Waste Management for the Ministry of Environment, Norma Tahar, has been in Bali this week, visiting the island’s biggest open landfill sites.
The hospitality sector in Bali is one of the biggest contributors to local landfill sites.
While there are localized recycling plants across the island, and many resorts, hotels, and tourism businesses have policies in place to minimize waste, the fact of the matter is that every day tonnes upon tonnes of waste from the tourism sector ends up at Bali’s landfill sites.
As almost all landfill sites and recycling plants are running at capacity, major changes have been needed for some time, and now it seems they have arrived.
Suwung TPA, Bali’s biggest open landfill site, which sits close to the resorts of Kuta and Sanur, is widely acknowledged to be at capacity and is still accepting more trash every day.
In October 2023, major fires broke out across the trash mountain and smoldered for days, covering much of the central southwest coast of Bali and Denpasar City with toxic fumes. The height of the trash mountain now sits at 35 meters above ground level and is many meters deep below ground level, too.
There are hopes that the policy forces businesses that produce waste to take full responsibility for how it is processed, whether that be drastically reducing the use of inorganic materials, increasing recycling, separating organic from inorganic waste, and creating localized composting systems.
Tahar also spoke to the press to confirm that the dialogue over formal and finally closing Suwung TPA once and for all will be intensified over the coming months.
Tahar told reporters, “We will intensively discuss land options outside Denpasar and Badung Regency. Hopefully, in the near future, we will come to a permanent decision which is fixed.
Speaking earlier this year, the Head of Bali Provincial Environment and Forestry Office, I Made Teja, explained, “Our landfills are in an overloaded condition. Based on the research results of the Minister of Public Works and Public Housing, the current real conditions of the Suwung TPA must be closed.”
Temesi TPA in Gianyar Regency, near Ubud, is anticipated to take over the overflow and become Bali’s next major open landfill site, expanding on the seven hectares of land that it already covers.
At Suwung TPA, managers are now discussing how to prevent major disasters at the site, including fires and the potential for trash landslides that would seriously endanger the lives of local trash pickers who scour the site for items that they can salvage, recycle, and earn an income from.
Management is working on compacting the trash mountain segment by segment and is working to complete the work before the monsoon season arrives.
Twelve heavy plant machinery vehicles have been deployed to compact the incomprehensibly large trash pile and dig a kind of moat around the outside of the 35.46 site to capture floodwater.
Suwung TPA currently receives 1,100 – 1,200 tonnes of waste a day from all around Badung Regency, including areas like Canggu, Seminyak, Legian, Kuta, Uluwatu, and Nusa Dua, as well as Denpasar City.
The site has been open since 1984 and was due to be closed before the G20 Summit was hosted in Bali in 2022, but waste has continued to be deposited at the site hour by hour every single day.
There are immediate concerns that this policy will be hardest on small and medium sized businesses that do not immediately have the resources to dispose of their waste by alternative means.
Larger hotels, restaurants, cafes, and accommodation providers are more likely to have more resources available to implement solutions quickly and impactfully in response to these upcoming policy changes.
There are fears that unless a set of mitigations are in place to support those businesses who don’t immediately have the resources to create a waste management strategy, more waste could end up being dumped at illegal landfill sites, in waterways, or unused pockets of land.
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Marc
Monday 11th of November 2024
Burn the rubbish and make your own electricity. Proper filters are needed of course but other countries do it for ages and successful. this powerplant pays itself by selling the electricity. It keeps the people busy if you pay them per kg amount x and the island would be super clean as you get money for rubbish. Solves all problems without creating new ones.
Exp
Wednesday 13th of November 2024
@Marc, "proper filters" is what they will fail to install. Just refer to the many coal fired power plants built over the last decade polluting huge areas with fine dust. Jakarta is almost chocked to death some days. Thousands dead annually due to the coal fired power plants.
LINK
J West
Monday 11th of November 2024
There are obvious solutions to Balis perennial “garbage overload”.
1) Hard Quota system on reducing tourism and foreigner numbers. Starting with Australians and Slavs.
2) Prison for village headmen of upcountry villages who oversee dumping garbage in the rivers and ravines.
3) Awareness campaign such as filling hotel swimming pools with liquid waste from guest rooms.
4) Restaurants to only serve colon binding meals so that tourists carry their constipation home instead of dumping in Bali. Gassy Vegans banned.
5) Reef building with garbage nets providing wholesome food to fish while reclaiming new islands while extending shorelines and surf breaks.
That’s a good start.
M
Monday 11th of November 2024
is it that hard to build a waste burning plant and a desalination plant for the island's water supply? 2 structures which would change a lot of problems... advice: use the tourist tax money instead of saying we don't know yet how it will be used!
Made
Sunday 10th of November 2024
Blah blah blah blah, The truth is if you want tourist, you have to work on your infrastructure. Every bit of your infrastructure waste management is a huge problem so is the traffic so the idiots taking their motorcycle mufflers off their motorcycles there’s many many problems but to have resorts take care of their own garbage and not have a place to put it, that’s completely ridiculous. Why don’t you go to Singapore Hong Kong another place that has Waze has major population in a dense location and see how they’re taking care of their waist just telling resorts sorry you’re on your own. It’s the government responsibility. You collect the taxes from these businesses, put the taxes to good use . Once again, an Indonesian not taking any responsibility for anything and just passing the buck. I agree that something has to be done. Why don’t you start by going up the river having officials and police walk up the river walk up the stream walk up all your waterways and see who is walking out and dumping their garbage in the river. All the locals lives near waterway is throwing it in the water. Best to make free garbage pick up for everyone and pass the law where somebody will actually spend some time in jail if they pollute. 90% of Indonesians don’t give a damn about the environment. So time to pull your head out of the sand or maybe it’s where the sun doesn’t shine and address the problem with a better solution. Take some responsibility.
Sven
Wednesday 13th of November 2024
@Exp, they have laws on the paper, yet absolutely no law enforcement, unless they can harass foreigners for breaking the law. It's total uncivilized jungle.
Harrison
Wednesday 13th of November 2024
@Made, Can’t argue about any of that.
Friend lives in a village up in North. Banjar inspect the river: any trash found they do their best to identify the culprit then go to see them with the police.
Name and shame them. His village is absolutely spotless.
Exp
Monday 11th of November 2024
@Made, "Best to make free garbage pick up for everyone and pass the law where somebody will actually spend some time in jail if they pollute."
1. I was informed by a Balinese that low income people already have free trash collection.
2. There are already strict laws in place: Up to 50 juta fine, 3 month jail for burning or throwing trash.
So you see, there is something fundamentally wrong with the education system here; that most children grows up and give a shit about their environment and lack respect for other peoples living conditions.
Mark
Sunday 10th of November 2024
And the major reason that the hotels and tourism has so much rubbish in landfills it's for a few reasons one they spend more money than anyone else too there is no recycling by the hotels so that things can be recycled and number three because the locals just throw their rubbish in the river or on the street if they were putting it in the correct place it'll be as much rubbish in the landfill from locals as there is from tourists... I live close to the river and every day I see people throwing bags of garbage in it