January 13, 2026
JAKARTA – Greater Jakarta continues to grapple with a waste crisis, with Jakarta and neighboring Depok becoming the latest to report landfill leaks and collapses or overflowing of trash from disposal sites, prompting complaints from people living near the facilities over unmanaged waste.
Over the past few weeks, tonnes of garbage have been piling up at a dumpsite owned by the capital’s largest wholesale market Kramat Jati in East Jakarta.
The dumpsite can temporarily deposit 120 tonnes of waste a day before the trash is transported to city-owned Bantar Gebang landfill in neighboring West Java’s Bekasi.
But the dumpsite in Kramat Jati has been operating with an insufficient number of garbage trucks, which should send the waste to Bantar Gebang.
Waste has piled up six meters high and destroyed the dumpsite’s embankment. Many residents have voiced their frustration over the pungent smell emanating from the mounting trash.
The Jakarta Environmental Agency deployed 25 waste trucks on Thursday to start diverting the waste to Bantar Gebang. As of Sunday, around 1,300 tonnes of waste have been transported to the landfill.
But the agency said that it only helped in transporting the garbage to Bantar Gebang to prevent prolonged waste buildup near the market, insisting that the duty to manage waste lies with the market operator: city-owned company Pasar Jaya.
Pasar Jaya has “an obligation to manage waste independently, in accordance with prevailing regulations,” said East Jakarta Environmental Agency head Julius Monangta in a statement on Thursday.
Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung has also urged Pasar Jaya to properly manage the waste.
Meanwhile, repeated avalanches of trash have occurred at the Bantar Gebang landfill in the past few months, with the latest being in December of last year, when parts of the landfill collapsed because of heavy rain and hit three garbage trucks. No fatalities were reported.
More than 55 million tonnes of waste are currently dumped in Bantar Gebang. Jakarta sends roughly 8,000 tonnes of its daily waste to the landfill, whose capacity is predicted to last for the next six years.
Jakarta councilor Bun Joi Phiau of the Indonesian Solidarity Party (PSI) urged the city administration to build strong retaining walls in Bantar Gebang to prevent future collapse.
He added that the city should also expand its waste management infrastructures to reduce the burdens of Bantar Gebang.
“If Jakarta cannot reduce the amount of waste generated daily, Bantar Gebang will become increasingly overcrowded,” he told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. He suggested that recycling centers should be expanded and that sustainable waste management campaigns should involve Jakarta residents.
Some other Jakarta satellite cities have also been grappling with waste crises, including Depok in West Java and South Tangerang in Banten.
Trash overflowed into the streets and drainage ditches in Depok in the past few days and residents complained of the smell, Kompas.com reported, after the Environment Ministry ordered the shutdown of the Cipayung landfill because it is already overflowing.
Piles of plastic bags and household waste have been reported across South Tangerang since the ministry ordered a temporary shutdown of the city’s final trash disposal site Cipeucang on Dec. 10, 2025, citing a failure to properly process waste.
The waste emergency has worsened following protests in neighboring Serang against receiving garbage from South Tangerang, forcing authorities to reroute waste to West Java’s Cileungsi landfill in Bogor.