Tourism worsens Bali waste crisis

JAKARTA – Ms Indah Gryanti, a resident of Gianyar regency in Bali, said she is now often faced with stacks of uncollected residual waste, as garbage trucks come irregularly.

With no reliable waste collection, her family has opted to burn or dump some of the household trash in the backyard.

“Along the alley where I live, the trash is just piled up in corners with no one collecting it,” she told The Jakarta Post on April 30.

Ms Indah believed the issue stemmed from a combination of low public awareness of waste sorting and the government’s failure to provide a solution before closing the island’s largest disposal site, the Suwung landfill.

The waste issue has become increasingly acute on the island, which welcomes millions of domestic and international tourists annually, with local residents scrambling to deal with piles of uncollected garbage.

Experts have noted the urgency for tourism destinations and accommodations to reduce waste, as solutions such as waste-to-energy (WtE) infrastructure may take years to build.

Professor I Putu Anom, a tourism expert from Udayana University, told the Post on April 23 that the waste crisis had become a reality, especially in the southern part of Bali, the island’s main tourism hot spot.

“It’s not only affecting tourism activities, but residents are also confused and distressed as piles of waste build up in front of homes,” he said, stressing that both businesses in the tourism industry and local households were struggling with their garbage that had been left uncollected for weeks.

The issue could strain Bali’s image and tourism sector, which has long served as the backbone of the local economy, he added, arguing that the government should invest more in waste facilities and management given tourism’s major contribution to regional revenue.

Tourism activities have contributed significantly to waste production in Bali, particularly from single-use plastics in hotels and restaurants, said National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) researcher Reza Cordova.

He told the Post on April 23 that, based on some of BRIN’s research findings, tourism activities in Bali produced three to five times more waste than households.

“The waste problem there is considered systemic, ranging from poor waste sorting to unchanged disposal habits and waste management infrastructure that remains uneven and lacks integration.”

The short-term solution is to focus on curbing waste at its sources, he added, while also enhancing the collection and sorting system, as well as strengthening education and oversight.

“In the long term, Bali needs to build an integrated management system based on the circular economy, from production to final processing,” he noted.

Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) in Bali executive director Made Krisna Dinata concurred, adding that the most urgent short-term measure was to ease the burden on the island’s overloaded landfills by expanding household-level organic waste management.

He also told the Post on April 23 that Bali needed to shift in the medium term from a “collect-and-dump” system to a waste management model that focused on reduction and recycling.

“The tourism sector, including hotels, restaurants, beach clubs, villas and shopping centres, must also be a key focus of reform, as they generate large amounts of waste,” he said, adding that these businesses should be required to conduct waste audits, set annual reduction targets, implement reuse schemes and carry out on-site organic waste processing.

In April, hundreds of garbage trucks lined up in front of the Bali Governor Office in Denpasar, a protest that was held in response to the waste disposal restrictions at the Suwung landfill, which will accept only inorganic and residual waste starting in April due to overcapacity.

After hours of discussions with representatives of Bali Waste Self-Management Communication Forum, Bali Governor I Wayan Koster decided to reopen the Suwung landfill for organic waste disposal until the end of July.

Will WtE solve the problem?

Mr Reza from BRIN described WtE as a “complementary solution”, pointing out that the facility could help reduce waste volumes, particularly garbage that is difficult to recycle.

“Its effectiveness will depend heavily on the quality of the waste management at the source. If not managed properly, there is a risk of emissions and continued reliance on waste supply,” he said.

Mr Krisna from Walhi Bali also warned of the health and environmental risks of a WtE facility, which typically uses incineration to burn waste and generate electricity.

“From a zero-waste perspective, this is called a false solution. The issue is moved from landfill to incinerators, while the root causes of overproduction, single-use plastics and the failure to sort waste, remain unresolved,” he said.

Mr Koster said on April 22 that the ground-breaking event for Bali’s WtE project, initially scheduled for June 30, was moved to July 8 after he requested a more “auspicious” date.

The project is set to be launched on a 6ha piece of land controlled by state-owned port operator Pelindo in Benoa, which is currently in the process of fulfilling environmental impact analysis requirements.

According to the timeline, the WtE project is slated to be completed in November 2027, followed by a finalisation process, before finally beginning operation in December that year.

Once the WtE project is up and running, the plant is poised to manage 1,200 tonnes of waste daily from Denpasar and Badung. The combined waste volume from the two regions accounts for roughly one-third of the total 3,400 tonnes of waste produced daily in Bali in 2025. THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK