The potentials of landfill gas production: a review on municipal solid waste management in Indonesia

Municipal solid waste (MSW) becomes a complex problem in Indonesia due to various reasons such as the increase of population, increasing quantity of waste, environmental health caused by unorganized waste, and also lack of public awareness. Various considerations have influenced the methods of waste management in different countries, such as amount and type of waste produced, type of waste collection, available area, and environmental regulations practiced. One of the methods suitable for MSW condition in Indonesia is landfill gas (LFG) production. This study reports about the MSW management in Indonesia, which main focus is the landfill gas production using the LandGEM equation and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methodology. Both approaches are applied to several cities in Indonesia including Medan, Jakarta, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Denpasar, Pontianak, and Makassar which has a higher percentage of waste generated compared to other cities. The findings of this paper indicated that 20.23 x 10(6) tons/year MSW produced in Indonesia could generate as much as 875,130 tons/year of methane as the main component of landfill gas. As additional information, this amount of waste theoretically could generate 54,142 MW electricity/year.