Antara, Jakarta – Indonesia has made progress in managing its mounting waste problem, but officials acknowledge the country remains far from its long-term targets as garbage volumes continue to rise and strain local infrastructure.
Indonesia's waste management rate reached 24.95% as of January 2026, up sharply from about 10% in early 2025, Environment Minister Hanif Faisol Nurofiq said on Wednesday.
A March 2025 evaluation of 472 districts and cities showed that only around 10% of the roughly 141,000 tons of waste generated each day nationwide was being properly managed.
This means that at the current rate, only about one in four tons of Indonesia's daily waste is handled through formal systems, while the remaining three-quarters goes unmanaged, often ending up in open dumps, being burned, or polluting rivers and the environment.
"By January 2026, our inspections and monitoring show substantial improvement," Hanif told state news agency Antara, adding that the gains reflect expanded monitoring, guidance and outreach to local governments over the past year.
Hanif said many waste facilities are operating below capacity, saying that if all existing infrastructure were fully utilized, the national waste management rate could reach 57.3%.
Even that would fall short of the government's ambitions. Indonesia's National Medium-Term Development Plan targets 100% waste management coverage by 2029, while President Prabowo Subianto has set an interim goal of 63.4% by 2026.
To close the gap, the government is pushing stricter household-level waste sorting, expanding cleanup campaigns under the Indonesia ASRI (Safe, Healthy, Clean and Beautiful) Movement, and accelerating waste-to-energy (WtE) projects.
The administration plans to roll out WtE facilities across 34 cities and regencies facing acute waste emergencies, prioritizing areas where daily waste volumes exceed 1,000 tons, State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi said in January. The projects are intended to reduce environmental pressure, mitigate public health risks and contribute to the national power supply.
The WtE push forms part of 18 national strategic projects scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2026, with a combined investment value of Rp 600 trillion ($35.8 billion). Implementation will be led by sovereign wealth fund Danantara Indonesia.
Industry players say that without integrated waste movement systems and appropriate heavy equipment, Waste-to-Energy (WtE) projects risk unstable feeding, frequent downtime and higher operating costs, undermining their viability.
"As part of our commitment to supporting the government's agenda on sustainable waste management, we believe that the success of Waste-to-Energy projects depends not only on power generation technology, but also on the readiness of operational systems on the ground," said Adrianus Hadiwinata, president director of Multicrane Perkasa.
Heavy equipment firm Multicrane Perkasa (MCP) is positioning itself as an integrated waste movement partner for WtE projects in Indonesia, supporting processes from pre-processing and transfer to feeding systems and operations.
MCP is involved in a WtE project in Sukabumi with Cahaya Yasa Cipta and an RDF initiative operating since July 2025. The company has deployed electric crane-based feeders and material handlers to improve feeding stability and efficiency.