Techno-economic analysis on community-based municipal solid waste processing facilities: A case study in Sleman Regency Indonesia

The Indonesian government established a nationwide community-based Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) treatment program as an intermediate treatment facility designed to serve 400 households. The facility is called TPS3R (Tempat Pengolahan Sampah dengan Reuse-Reduce-Recycle, translated into MSW Treatment Facility based on Reduce-Reuse-Recycle). Of the 922 TPS3R units nationwide, only 538 (58.35%) were functional. Owing to this low success rate, the government should evaluate the TPS3Rs situation before planning to build 307 new TPS3Rs from 2023 to 2024. This study compares the economic feasibility of intermediate treatment facilities at two scales: TPS3R Bramamuda (2 tons of MSW/day) and TPST Sinduadi (18 tons of MSW/day). The treatment cost for TPS3R Bramamuda was Rp. 742,000 (USD 50)/ton MSW, whereas that for TPST Sinduadi was Rp. 298,000 (USD 20)/ton MSW. However, the current tipping fees of both units were lower than the treatment costs. TPST Sinduadi downstream processing was crucial for offsetting treatment costs and tipping the fee gap. TPS3R Bramamuda did not have an extensive downstream business and relied on government grants to survive. Based on this study, several policy recommendations were proposed: 1) reasonability of the economic analysis and business plan should be included as one of the criteria to disburse state grants; 2) the government should guarantee the off-takers of the MSW treatment products; 3) the government should employ new methods to force the community to sort their garbage by enforcing a fair reward and penalty system; and 4) exploration of technology applications to charge the community with variable retributions, depending on their waste segregation compliance.