Bandung to use biodigester for waste management

The Jakarta Post, Tue, August 04 2015,


The Bandung administration is ready to use a biodigester, a waste processing technology that can produce renewable energy from organic material such as manure, as part of an effort to create a more environmentally friendly waste management in the city, an official said.

Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil said the biodigester would replace the incinerator, a furnace for burning waste, which had formerly been used as a part of the city's program to develop waste-powered power plants.

“The core problem with the development of a waste-fired power plant is its technology. We have now found a new environmentally friendly technology called the biodigester,” he said in Bandung on Monday.

Earlier, the Bandung administration insisted that the incinerator should be part of the city’s waste management project. In partnership with the Chinese-based Hangzou Boiler Group, waste management company PT Bandung Raya Indah Lestari won the project’s tender.

Ridwan said the biodigester should be an alternative technology for waste management in the city. While it could produce methane gas from waste, the biodigester was much more environmentally friendly. The methane gas itself could be processed to generate energy.

“We need waste-fired power plants but they should not use incinerator technology,” said the mayor. He said the biodigester had no environmental impact, since it did not require any burning -- which releases carbon -- something always required with incinerator technology.

Bandung residents produce 1,400 to 1,600 tons of waste every day. Such a massive production of waste once triggered a major problem when a large explosion occurred in the Leuwigajah trash dump in 2005. At least 147 people were killed in the incident.

The Leuwigajah incident was one of the factors that triggered the issuance of Law No.18/2008 on waste management in Indonesia. In the 2008 waste law, the government requires the reduce, reuse and recycle approach to produce sustainable and environmentally friendly energy.



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