Construction of Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Power Plant in Balikpapan to Handle Waste and Marine Litter Treatment in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia is the country with the fourth-largest population in the world, with approximately 267 million people in 2019. With a large number of populations, it produced a massive amount of waste. Waste generated in Indonesia reached 175,000 tons per day or 64 million tons of waste annually. The marine litter data in Indonesia is also quite astonishing, as an archipelagic country it turns out that marine plastic waste circulating in our waters is 187.2 million tons. Jenna Jambeck's research in 2015 states that Indonesia is the second-largest producer of marine litter in the world. Meanwhile, in the USA, with a population of approximately 322 million people, chooses to use waste as energy resources. There are 84 WTE facilities over 23 states that can process more than 96,000 tons of waste per day with a baseload electric capacity of 2,679 megawatt-hours. Regarding the waste treatment in the USA that makes it as an energy source, there is also a massive potential for utilizing waste in Indonesia to build WTE plants and facilities. One place that can be considered to built WTE plants in Indonesia is Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. Balikpapan as a big city in the middle of Indonesia and located on the seafront is very suitable as a WTE Plants location because it can cover waste from various locations, both from within Borneo itself and from other islands, especially central Indonesia and eastern Indonesia, and even the marine waste that already circulating in our sea waters.