Bekasi Regency Asked To Set Garbage Emergency Status

Mountains of garbage at the Burangkeng TPA, Setu District, Bekasi Regency, West Java Province. (ANTARA/Pradita Kurniawan Syah)

BEKASI - The Regional Development Acceleration Team (TP2D) recommended that Bekasi Regency establish a waste emergency status. Furthermore, the relevant local government took a number of steps to deal with the problem.

"An action plan has been prepared, as well as a plan to form a team or task force that will work intensively to deal with waste problems," said Acting Regent of Bekasi, Dani Ramdan after chairing the TP2D coordination meeting in Cikarang, Bekasi Regency, Thursday, July 21.

He explained, based on the results of the TP2D recommendation, the Bekasi Regency Government made a short-term action plan for the next three months, a medium-term within one year, and a more fundamental long-term plan.

"The Bekasi Regency Government will make more serious efforts to handle waste in the next three months," he said, according to Antara.

Concrete steps that will be taken in the near future include transporting garbage that fills rivers, installing garbage catching nets at a number of points such as market areas to bridges.

The next action, he said, is to prepare facilities or trash bins along the river so that people stop the habit of throwing garbage into the river.

"Then we also carry out education and law enforcement, installation of banners and sanctions for people who are caught throwing garbage into the river," he said.

According to Dani, the determination of the waste emergency status is part of the socialization as well as education to the people of Bekasi Regency regarding the large number of waste that is disposed of improperly.

The excess capacity at the Bekasi Regency Government's final waste disposal site in Burangkeng Village, Setu District also adds to the list of homework that must be handled more seriously.