Public issues in waste affairs in the pandemic era as a challenge for agile bureaucracy

Abstract

The era of the COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged residents to stay at home and reduce social mobility. Work and study activities are carried out as much as possible at home. One of the phenomena that emerged in this phase was the increase in household waste and medical waste. This article aims to reveal what public issues arise from the increase in household and medical waste during the pandemic. Qualitative research methods have been carried out by collecting data from online mass media, interviews, and observations. The results show that the increase in household waste and medical waste raised new public issues: special processing of medical waste, the safety of waste officers, health insurance for waste officers, and adjustment of volume-based waste fee system (VWF). Agile bureaucracy must respond quickly to this phenomenon so that public problems can be resolved immediately. Bureaucracies have to get out of their comfort zone to deal with complex general problems, move faster and different than usual.