A small minibus judders on a narrow driveway at the waste collection point in Suwung. The passengers stare out of the windows, taking pictures of the towering piles of waste. The Suwung collection point stretches over 25 hectares.

In some places, the heaps are more than four metres high. The compact mass mainly consists of colourful plastic bags and half-composted organic waste. But this waste is worth its weight in gold. The island’s first Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project begins here -- at Bali’s biggest trash heap.

Bernt Bakken, a spokesman for Manunggal Energi Group -- the Indonesian company, which is funding the project explained it would "generate 874,000 tonnes of CERs. The waste generates methanol which is twenty times more dangerous than CO2."

Generating CERs

CERs are Certified Emission Reductions -- commonly known as ‘carbon credits’. The Suwung waste recycling project generates CERs by turning waste into energy. The project was almost doomed to failure because of lack of funding. But things changed when Indonesia signed up to the Kyoto Protocol in 2005.

Manunggal Energi Group stepped in as an investor. The operating company then had to wait two years to get the project registered as a CDM project, explained Made Sudarma from the Bali waste authority.

"We had to change the design a few times. Initially, we wanted to use digester tanks for storing the waste but that was rejected because this is meant to be a landfill project. So we came up with rectangular cells, and that was approved."

That was in May of this year. The construction of eleven concrete pre-cast cells began immediately. The cells can contain up to 12,000 cubic metres of biological waste.

Gasification process

The compact mass in the cells releases gasses, which are conducted through pipes to a power plant, explained Robert Eden, the engineer representing the project’s British partner group responsible for the technical aspects.

"Once the composition process is stabilised sufficiently, we can take the organic material out of the cell, and use it either a compost or as a fuel for the gasification process. So we actually clear the cell out so that we can use it again."

Since the cells can be used again and again, the trash heap doesn't grow in size and there is always enough fuel. The Balinese authorities estimate that 1,600 tonnes of waste a day are produced alone in Bali’s capital Denpasar.

August 2008

A customer for the electricity produced from the waste has already been found explained Soeyoto, the director of Manunggal Energi Group: "This project should generate 9.6 megawatts, which will be bought by the national power company, and fed into the national power grid. This will provide [electricity] for approximately 700 households."

Soeyoto expects that the power plant will start generating electricity in August 2008. Meanwhile, the waste is being stored in the cells so that it does not emit methane gas into the atmosphere. And the CERs, which are generated, can be sold on the global CO2 market.