Speaking at the Singapore International Energy Week event, the country’s National Economic Council chairman Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said that a single waste-to-energy (WTE) plant in Jakarta alone could generate 20 megawatts (MW) of “green energy” per day and invited investors to join a blended finance scheme managed by new sovereign wealth fund Danantara.
Announced earlier this year, Indonesia’s waste-to-energy expansion project is billed as key to protecting public health and supporting tourism development in a country that generates 56 million tonnes of waste every year and has one of the world’s leakiest waste systems. Nearly 60 per cent of Indonesia’s waste is poorly managed, with much of it landfilled or openly dumped.
“If we can work together, using blended finance as a tool to invest [in WTE], we could help to reduce emissions in the world,” Luhut said at the event on Monday.
Waste is the single largest contributor to methane pollution in Indonesia, accounting for 56 per cent of the total emitted. The high methane emissions from waste are primarily due to the inadequate collection and treatment of organic waste, particularly food waste.
Danantara chief executive Rosan Roeslani said on Friday that of the 204 potential backers in the WTE project, 66 are foreign investors. The investor selection and bidding process is expected to begin next month, she told reporters.
Cities with high waste volumes, including Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya and Bali, have been prioritised, with a project completion date slated for 2029.
Non-government organisations have warned against the rapid scale-up of WTE plants in Indonesia as the country prepares to submit its nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement at COP30 next month, a key part of which is controlling the country’s enormous waste emissions.
Non-profit Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (Gaia) argued in a white paper that WTE technologies are unsuitable for Indonesia’s wet, organic-dominated waste and are emissions-intensive, undermining climate goals. Some studies find that WTE plant emissions are comparable with that of coal-fired power stations.
“Incinerators may look like an easy fix, but they simply swap one greenhouse gas for another [methane for carbon dioxide] and lock communities into decades of pollution,” said Mariel Vilella, GAIA’s global climate programme director, in a study on the climate impacts of incineration.
Gaia also warned that a dependence on WTE could affect the livelihoods of the estimated 3.7 million waste collectors who rely on access to recyclable materials to make a living. In March, Indonesia announced it would close 343 out of 550 open dumping sites, which has also raised concerns about displacing waste pickers and creating a reliance on incineration to cap waste.
Indonesia’s last NDCs, drawn up in 2022, favoured measures such as landfill gas recovery and incineration to rein in emissions. But GAIA advocates for Indonesia to adopt zero waste strategies as an alternative to incineration. It argues that waste separation, composting and recycling can minimise both methane and carbon emissions more effectively than incinerators.
