Tons of garbage have been dumped under a toll road in North Jakarta only months after a major clean-up operation was conducted in the same area.
According to The Jakarta Post, the clean-up operation in April 2018 cleared more than 1,600 tons of waste from under the Wiyoto Wiyono toll road in North Jakarta. This week, a new operation began to remove tons of waste that again had been dumped there. Basrudin, the head of the Tanjung Priok environment unit, said the garage was dumped by local residents recently.
This was disputed by community leader Ujang Johan, who claimed that the heaps of garbage were dumped by non-residents and that he was unaware of any residents using the land as a dump site.
Johan added that garbage from the local residents was taken to the Waduk Cinin landfill by trash collectors on the neighborhood unit’s payroll.
200 North Jakarta Environment Agency officers were sent to clean up the area on January 14. As of January 15, about 146 tons of waste had been moved to the landfill, with the clean-up operation expected to continue until Sunday, January 20th.
Jakarta Environment Agency held the operator of the toll road partly responsible for the phenomenon, saying that the operator should assist with the area’s maintenance.