Challenge of Waste Management in Medan City

Hatta Ridho, M. Arif Nasution, Subhilhar and Muryanto Amin

Faculty of Social and Polical Science, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia

Keywords: Institutional Management, Waste Management, Collaborative Management.

Abstract: Waste management is a challenge for many cities in Indonesia, especially Medan. Especially because of the

increase in waste, the burden on the city budget as a result of the high costs associated with its management,

the lack of understanding of diversity, the factors that influence the various stages of waste management and

solutions enable the entire waste handling system in Medan to be immediately implemented in the form of

Policy. This research is a qualitative research with a critical paradigm. The purpose of this study is to

determine the behavior of stakeholders who have a role in the waste management process and analyze the

factors that influence the challenges of waste management in Medan. Data is collected from structured

interviews with relevant professionals, field observations, books and scientific journals. The findings of this

study that challenge the management of waste management in Medan City are collaboration between

stakeholders in handling through institutional collaboration in the concept of Mebidangro institutional.

1 BACKGROUND

The main challenge in the waste management process

so far must be recognized is the role of local

governments. Where the janitor management pattern

takes garbage from the population and brings waste

to the TPS to be transported to the landfill by the

sanitation department it is still a pattern of waste

management activities in many regions in Indonesia.

Understanding the authority of local governments in

waste management is very important to understand

the opportunities for changes that can be done by

local governments to improve the legal loopholes in

plastic and plastic waste management in regulations

at the national level (Qodriyatun, 2015).

Local governments can make regulations and/or

policies to manage plastic waste in the area without

having to wait for regulations and / or policies at the

national level. The scope of the strategy above shows

that local governments have the authority to regulate

the matter of producer obligations in reducing waste.

Thus, the efforts of the regional government to

achieve the target of reducing waste are not limited to

the activity of reusing and recycling waste at the

source of waste generation (Sumarni & Amiruddin,

2014). Waste problem is a problem in various regions

in Indonesia including Medan City. This problem

arises by increasing population, technological

advances and transportation in urban areas which is

directly proportional to the increasing amount of

waste produced (Ferronato et al., 2017). This is a

consequence of the city of Medan as the most

efficient and effective location for productive

activities related to industry, transportation and other

activities. The problem has a bad effect because of the

negative impacts caused, such as; environmental

damage, pollution of clean water sources, flooding to

various diseases that are born.

According to data from Medan City Sanitation

Office in 2018, the amount of waste in Medan in the

last 3 (three) years has continued to increase, namely

in 2016 the amount of waste is 1,595 tons per day, in

2017 is 1,675 tons per day and in 2018 is 2,000 tons

per day (Putra, 2018). Furthermore, the increasing

amount of waste is not accompanied by the amount of

garbage transportation in the city of Medan which

amounts to 216 transport trucks (BPS, 2018) Various

policies in overcoming the complexity of the waste

problem have been implemented in various regions in

various parts of the world and regions in Indonesia.

One of them is collaboration between regions in

waste management, such as; waste management

cooperation conducted by the state of Maryland and

the state of Pennsylvania in 2014 in order to achieve

the "Zero Waste Maryland 2040". This collaboration

is based on the potential of solid waste in the state of

Maryland to reach 12-13 million tons of waste per

Ridho, H., Nasution, M., Subhilhar, . and Amin, M.

Challenge of Waste Management in Medan City.

DOI: 10.5220/0010001700130017

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social and Political Development (ICOSOP 3 2019) - Social Engineering Governance for the People, Technology and Infrastructure in

Revolution Industry 4.0, pages 13-17

ISBN: 978-989-758-472-5

year which causes flooding in the country (Ryu,

2014).

Then, South Korea in 2016 made a module in the

collaboration policy on waste management through

"Zero Waste in Korea 2018" through the

collaboration of ideas to maximize reuse through the

recycling process by maximizing technology with

sustainable ideas. Collaboration in South Korea

compares sustainable waste management in European

countries, Japan and the United States through

technology transfer (Lee, 2018). Then, waste

management in DKI Jakarta through collaboration

with Bekasi City related to Integrated Waste

Management Sites (TPSP) in Bataran Gebang

(Aprillia, 2016).

Related to rubbish in Medan City is a

comprehensive problem that can be solved through

the collaboration of Medan City Government and the

Deli Serdang Regency Government in the

Mebidangro scheme which until now has not been

effective and efficient when implemented.

Previously, there were 2 (two) locations that were

used as landfills (TPA) in the city of Medan, namely

the TPA Falls located in North Medan and the TPA

Namo Bintang located in South Medan. However,

until now the existing landfill site is still not

functioning optimally. This is due to the limited area

of landfills which also affect the technical operational

management and waste disposal services.

The impact of uncontrolled waste management in

Medan has begun to be felt by the community, such

as; the narrowing of the River Basin (DAS), pollution

of water sources and flooding in the city of Medan.

This means that the collaboration of waste

management between Medan City Government and

Deli Serdang Regency Government in the

Mebidangro secretariat is something that is urgent to

be implemented. Because territorially, Medan City

borders and divides Deli Serdang Regency directly.

Moreover, large rivers in the city of Medan are

experiencing damage and a source of problems for the

community due to the accumulation of waste, such as;

Denai River, Babura River and Deli River when

viewed upstream and downstream watershed are in

Deli Serdang Regency.

The Ministry of Environment and Forestry of the

Republic of Indonesia released the list of dirtiest

cities in Indonesia in early 2019 and Medan City

occupied a position as one of the dirtiest metropolitan

cities, besides Bandar Lampung and Manado, from

369 regencies/cities throughout Indonesia (Sur,

2019). This assessment is based on physical

indicators and the condition of the final processing

site (TPA) where Medan received poor grades.

Therefore the research entitled; Management

challenges for waste management in Medan are

important to do.

2 METHODS

This research method is qualitative with a positivist

paradigm with direct interviews to informants,

observations, interviews, journals and books. The

determination of informants as sources of data in this

study was determined on research subjects who had

the knowledge and experience needed by researchers

in accordance with the research problem, were able to

express their knowledge and experience and had time

to be interviewed for research purposes. Data was

collected starting from the initial observation, pre-

research to direct interviews to informants in Medan

City Sanitation Office, NGOs to academics.

3 DISCUSSION

3.1 Garbage Issues in Medan City

The Ministry of Environment and Forestry of the

Republic of Indonesia released the list of dirtiest

cities in Indonesia in early 2019. In that list Medan

City occupies a position as one of the dirtiest

metropolitan cities, besides Bandar Lampung and

Manado, from 369 regencies/cities throughout

Indonesia. The assessment is based on physical

indicators and the condition of the final processing

site (TPA) where Medan received poor grades.

According to data from Medan City Sanitation and

Landscaping Office (2019), the volume of waste in

2016 averaged 1595 tons per day, continued in 2017

to increase to 1,675 tons per day, and in 2018 it

reached 2000 tons per day. At the same time, waste

management in Medan still uses an open dumping

system as a sign of low commitment and public

participation in handling waste. Jaya Arjuna, an

environmental observer, assesses the bad title that

Medan bears as a worrisome condition.

The study of waste management so far has not

only tended to focus on community behavior and

participation, but also concerns the issue of waste

management by related institutions and the

community (through the Waste Bank), as seen from

Hilburn's (2015) study of household waste

management in rural areas in Coxcatlan , Puebla,

Mexico. Likewise, studies from Lydie Yiougo (2013)

in Ramos, Vicentini, & Ortega (2012)on waste

management in Caracas, Venezuela. These studies

ICOSOP 3 2019 - International Conference on Social Political Development (ICOSOP) 3

have looked at various forms of problems

encountered in waste management, but do not pay

attention to the solutive aspects in solving the garbage

problem. In addition to various problems and

weaknesses, there are also possibilities and

opportunities owned by related institutions in

improving waste management. This study

specifically wants to look at the issue of collaboration

between neighbors in dealing with waste

management issues by taking cases in Medan City

and Deli Serdang Regency.

This research is based on the assumption that in

urban waste management, especially in Indonesia,

collaboration between regions is needed if there is a

condition where one area with an excessive volume

of waste (overloaded) does not have sufficient land to

manage its waste. Barriers in the form of differences

in perceptions and attitudes of the two regional

governments must be removed by creating a

synergistic and conducive collaboration format in

handling the waste problem (Lee, 2017).

Exploration of how the collaboration

opportunities owned by the two related institutions

become very important in the context of efforts to

improve waste management in the community,

especially in Indonesia as a developing country that

must prepare itself to welcome the Industrial 4.0 era.

Furthermore, this paper is intended to explain how the

collaboration between Medan City Government and

Deli Serdang District Government takes place in

handling waste as mandated by Presidential

Regulation (Perpres) No. 62 of 2011 concerning

Spatial Planning (RTR) of the Mebidangro Urban

Area. Some important questions explored in this

study include (a) how the collaboration between the

Medan City government and Deli Serdang District

took place in waste management; (b) how the

different perspectives and values of the two actors

become obstacles and advocates for collaboration;

and (c) how the problem is solved and how a

synergistic and conducive collaboration format for

waste management can be formulated. These three

questions direct this study to enable the discovery of

an ideal collaboration format in handling waste

between Medan City Government and Deli Serdang

District Government. Furthermore, this paper,

therefore, addresses these three issues as the subject

of discussion which becomes the very important

parts.

3.2 Waste Management in Medan City

So Far

Based on data from Medan City Office 2018, the

composition of waste in Medan City is a mixture of

physical components of waste such as food scraps,

paper, plastic, metal, glass, fabric, rubber and others.

From the data it was noted that the most dominant

component of waste was food waste which was

38.63% and the lowest was fabric / textile by 0.83%.

Furthermore, other data explained that the largest

volume of waste was paper and plastic, each of which

amounted to 38.90% and 38.09%, then the lowest was

0.69% fabric. Furthermore, based on weight

indicators such as plastic and paper composition is

only 26.31% and 17.81% this is due to differences in

the density of each component of waste where plastic

waste has the lowest density.

Food/organic waste, paper and plastic waste

appear to be more dominant, this is due to the fact that

paper waste does not yet have economic value, so that

paper waste in the form of newspapers, boxes is

discarded directly by the source of waste and is not

picked up again by scavengers which are usually

useful for them economically. Then the majority of

people in the city of Medan in meeting the basic needs

of shopping every day and most do not carry shopping

places this increases the potential for plastic waste

generation.

The composition of waste in Medan City

continues to increase from year to year in line with

changes in the type of waste. This situation is related

to an increase in the life of Medan City people who

are increasingly consumptive. Efforts to reduce waste

use two approaches that can be done, namely

reducing waste production from each source of waste

and reducing the production of waste that has been

generated.

The fact is that all landfills (TPS) not owned by

the Medan City government indicate an unstable

management where they can stop operating at any

time. Given the importance of the TPS function as a

place to move collected waste back into container

trucks, the ideal land must be owned by the city and

made the TPS function more stable.

According to the Head of Medan City Sanitation

and Landscaping Service M Husni who said;

"The disproportionate number of polling stations

between districts and the data that an average

polling station serves about 10,000 houses while

some districts do not have any polling stations at all

shows that more polling stations are needed with

strategic allocation taking into account the

efficiency of garbage collection. However, the City

Challenge of Waste Management in Medan City

Government is having difficulty using the funds

due to protests from surrounding residents."

The efforts of Medan City Government so far in

an effort to reduce waste production from its source

apply the 3R principle, namely Reduce , which is an

effort made by reducing or minimizing the goods or

materials used. Re-use Efforts are made by reusing or

choosing items or materials that can be reused and

recycle, recycle waste produced (Ferronato, 2017).

3.3 Challenges of Waste Management

in Medan City

Empirically, it mainly addresses waste management

issues as collection, transportation, processing,

recycling or disposal and supervision of waste

materials which subsequently forms a waste

management system consisting of four main

components namely material production, collection

and transportation, processing and reprocessing and

final placement ie to be recycled or ended up at the

final disposal site of Medan City and Deli Serdang

Regency.

Until now, garbage in Medan City is still a

problem because waste management is done alone.

According to the Head of Medan City Sanitation and

Landscaping Service M Husni who said:

“The role of inter-regional cooperation

management in waste management is very

important in Medan today. As garbage has its own

form of management in traditional society, to deal

with waste from a denser population modern

society that has a nation state system requires a

slightly different approach from traditional to

modern waste management which is carried out

together.”

Law No 18/2008 regarding waste management

regulates the responsibilities of the central, provincial

and city governments in Indonesia. The responsibility

of the regional government at the city/regency level

is to; a) establish policies and strategies for waste

management based on national and provincial

policies. b) carry out waste management. c) provide

guidelines and supervision to other parties regarding

waste management. d) Build a Temporary Waste

Disposal Site (TPS), Integrated Waste Management

Site (TPST) and Final Processing Site (TPA), and (e)

conduct monitoring and evaluation of TPA every 6

months every 20 months.

According to the Chairman of the Forum for the

Environment Dana Tarigan said:

"The approach used to deal with waste at a higher

level requires a more comprehensive

conceptualization that requires the role of

cooperation in managing waste with the concept of

good cooperation. The role of local government in

the domain of waste management appears to

illustrate the role of the state, namely in terms of

planning through certain considerations such as

improving the quality of life of the people who used

to be solid waste collection workers, making policy,

to implementing waste management through work

contracts with technology intensive companies.

developing a comprehensive environmentally

friendly environment."

Policy of inter-governmental cooperation in

Medan City is one of the important keys in seeing the

role of waste management in general. Whereas the

actions taken by the regional government which

sometimes run individually without a concept or do

not implement regulations in accordance with inter-

regional cooperation. Impact on the situation, there is

a lack of attention to the community affected by

planning. (Ismail, 2000).

Government policies cannot be maximized if

implemented alone without the support of various

parties, especially stakeholders. In fact, collaboration

and partnerships need to be done to get the maximum

waste management results that lead to the success of

an area in overcoming long problems about waste.

Partnership or partnership in principle is built from

cooperation carried out by certain parties where the

partnership has an association with participation

between local governments.

4 CONCLUSIONS

From the field findings, in an effort to overcome

many waste problems in the city of Medan that have

management challenges. It is necessary to form the

Mebidangro Inter-Regional Cooperation Agency

(BKAD) whose authority is in North Sumatra

Province. Law Number 26 of 2007 concerning Spatial

Planning related to strategic areas is an important part

of national development. The reason is that there are

activities that have a great influence on spatial

planning in the surrounding area, other activities in

the same field and activities in other fields, and/or

improving the welfare of the community.

This specifically must lead to goals that are more

efficient and effective in future waste management.

Of course in the case of waste management,

regulations related to waste management through

cooperation agreements must be carried out in the

agreed development fields that contain what fields are

cooperated, who are the actors of cooperation, rights

and obligations of each collaborating party, sanctions

mechanism for violating the agreement, the allocation

of funding sources and the deadline for the agreement

to take place related to waste in Medan City.

ICOSOP 3 2019 - International Conference on Social Political Development (ICOSOP) 3

Therefore, waste management in Medan will

undoubtedly take place better in the future.

REFERENCES

Aprilia, A., 2016. Household solid waste management in

Jakarta, Indonesia: Evaluation on human behaviour,

economy, and GHG emissions.Dissertation.Kyoto

University: Kyoto.

Badan Pusat Statistik Medan. 2018. Medan dalam angka.

Retrieved from https://medankota.bps.go.id/

Chalhoub, M.S., 2018.Public policy and technology

choices for municipal solid waste management a recent

case in Lebanon, Environmental Chemistry, Pollution &

Waste Management, 1 – 18. Retrieved from

https://www.cogentoa.com/article/10.1080/23311843.

2018.1529853

Fat, 2014. Warga Sekitar TPA Supiturang Memanfaatkan

Gas Metan untuk Memasak. Detik. Retrieved from

http://news.detik.com/surabaya/read/2014/01/08/08531

7/2461211/475/warga-sekitar-tpa-supiturang-

manfaatkan-gas-metan-untuk-memasak

Ferronato, N., et al., 2017. Waste mismanagement in

developing countries: A case study of environmental

contamination. UPB Scientific Bulletin, Series D:

Mechanical Engineering, 79(3).

Hilburn, A.M., 2015. At home or to the dump?: Household

garbage management and the trajectories of waste in a

rural Mexican Municipio, Journal of Latin American

Geography, 14(2). Retrieved from

DOI: 10.1353/lag.2015.0019

Ismail, 2000. Konsep dan strategi peningkatan kualitas

pelayanan publik. In Menuju pelayanan prima, konsep

dan strategi peningkatan kulitas publik, Averroes.

Malang.

Lee, M., Choi, H., & Koo, Y., 2017. Inconvenience cost of

waste disposalbehavior in South Korea. Ecological

Economics, 140, 58 – 65. Retrieved from doi:

10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.04.031

Putra, T.J. 2018. Masyarakat Kota Medan Hasilkan

Sampah 2 Ribu Ton Per Hari. Retrieved from

https://www.gatra.com/detail/news/375696Masyarakat

-Kota-Medan-Hasilkan-Sampah-2-Ribu-Ton-Per-Hari

Qodriyatun, S.N., 2015. Bentuk lembaga yang ideal dalam

pengelolaan sampah di daerah (Studi di Kota Malang

dan Kabupaten Gianyar), Pusat Pengkajian,

Pengolahan Data dan Informasi (P3DI) Sekretariat

Jenderal DPR RI. Jakarta.

Ramos, C., Vicentini, A., & Ortega, D., 2012. Challenges

and opportunities of waste collection in Caracas: Sucre

municipality case study consilience.The Journal of

Sustainable Development, 7(1), 115–129.

Ryu, C., 2012. Potential of municipal solid waste for

renewable energy production and reduction of

greenhouse gas emissions in South Korea. Journal of

the Air & Waste Management Association, 60, 176-172.

Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/

uawm20, hal

Sumarmi& Amirudin. 2014. Pengelolaan lingkungan

berbasis kearifan lokal, Aditya Median Publishing.

Malang.

Sur, 2019. KLHK sebut Medan, Bandar Lampung dan

Manado kota terkotor. CNN Indonesia. Retrieved from

https://www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/20190114145

854-20-360675/klhk-sebut-medan-bandar-lampung-

dan-manado-kota-terkotor

Challenge of Waste Management in Medan City