Indonesia Mulls Cooperation With Belgium To Convert Trash Into Energy

JAKARTA, March 27 (Antara) - Indonesia is mulling to cooperate with Belgium in converting trash into energy, the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry said. "I have discussed it (the planned cooperation) with the Belgian minister of energy and environment. We have agreed that we can establish technical cooperation by designating the cities of Bogor, Makassar and Balikpapan as pilot projects," Indonesian Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya Bakar said in a press statement released on Monday. The Indonesian minister met with Belgian Minister of Energy, Environment and Development Marie Christine Marghem in Belgium on Sunday at the invitation of the latter. While in Belgium, Siti Nurbaya, accompanied by Minister Marghem and Indonesian Ambassador in Brussels Yuri Thamrin, visited Dufour waste processing unit in Tournai located 63 kilometers from Brussels. She also visited Domaine De Graux, a farm house of the third generation built on around 120 hectares of land. Dufour is a family company set up in the early 1920s. In 1998, the company built a recycling unit by applying a concept of circular economy. By employing around 900 workers, the recycling unit processes about 200,000 tons of trash per year. Nearly 92.5 percent of the trash is recycled into electrical power and recycled products, while the remaining 7.5 percent is processed by means of incinerator to produce heat. The garbage is sorted into metal item, non-metal item, cardboard, glass, plastic, electronic, and organic trash. "The interesting result of the observation is the system of collecting garbage from households and converting it into energy. The energy is mostly used for industrial estate and is not transmitted to the public power grid," she said. During the observation, she also learned Dufour's experience in collecting garbage. She saw a good chance to convert garbage into energy by employing garbage banks to collect garbage from households in Indonesia. To date, there are 5,244 garbage banks in 219 districts and municipalities in 34 provinces in Indonesia, she said.