Challenges on creation of sustainable municipal waste and wastewater management in Indonesia using experience of Hungary

Abstract

Hungary is a country in Central Europe with the population of 10 million people. In the second half of the last century, it belonged to the so-called communist block with the typically poor municipal waste and wastewater treatments. After the change of the political regime in 1989 and joining the European Union in 2004, there has been a huge development in these areas. The management of municipal solid waste now-a-days implements effective, countrywide separative collection, sorting plants for separately collected packaging materials, composting and biogas plants for biowaste, as well as facilities on the mechanical-biological treatment of residual fraction. As a result, the recycling rate of materials and energy is rather high. The municipal wastewater treatment system has been developing since, the wastewater sewerage system covers now over 80% of the population. The wastewater treatment in all treatment plants incorporates three stages: mechanical, biological and advanced chemical one. Nevertheless, there are newer and newer targets and challenges. One of the most important tasks is to develop a sustainable sewage sludge treatment system aiming at the converting of this by-product into agricultural or energetic values. In Indonesia with 270 million people, according to the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, 66.4% of municipal solid waste generated is simply landfilled, with 57% of landfills operating as open dumpsites, and 19.62% of waste is unregulated. Centralised wastewater treatment operates only in big cities and consists of only two stages. There are a huge number of targets to be met both in research and development, as well as in legislative and engineering fields. To create the sustainable municipal waste and wastewater treatment system in Indonesia, the Hungarian example and experience can be highly motivating and useful.