March 26, 2026 | 03:24 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - For nearly two decades, David Sutasurya has regularly shuttled between ministries to warn officials about the poor state of Indonesia's waste management. According to the Executive Director of Yaksa Pelestari Bumi Berkelanjutan, more than 66 percent of waste still ends up in open-dumping landfills, while the rest is discarded into the environment in an uncontrolled manner.
If the practice continues, the National Development Planning Agency estimates the volume of waste will surge to 82 million tons per year by 2045. "For the past 20 years we have essentially stood still and become trapped in technical approaches with instant solutions," David said when contacted on Friday, March 13, 2026.
The instant solutions David referred to are the government's reliance on waste processing technologies. One of them involves building refuse-derived fuel (RDF) projects—plants that produce alternative fuel from processed solid waste. The problem, he said, is that the technology merely shifts the methane emissions from waste into carbon emissions because the waste is burned.
David is concerned because Indonesia already produces 56.63 million tons of waste per year. Converted into emissions, that amount equals roughly 28 to 35 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). The waste releases emissions ranging from methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) to hydrogen sulfide (H2S), ammonia (NH3), and heavy metals that damage the environment.
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