ASEAN Beat | Environment | Southeast Asia

A Good Ban, Done Wrong: How to Accelerate Lasting and Just Solutions Amid Bali’s Waste Crisis

Closing Suwung landfill is the right decision. But the government has yet to provide sustainable alternatives for Bali’s waste.

On April 1, 2026, the Bali provincial government enacted a ban on organic waste at the Suwung landfill, a site that has operated for more than four decades. Closing Suwung is the right decision. However, this move is less proactive provincial reform than delayed enforcement of existing national law.

Law No. 18/2008 already prohibits open dumping and requires all landfills to comply by 2013. The Ministry of Environment and Forestry’s Decree No. 921 of 2025 represents not a sudden intervention, but enforcement more than a decade late. This highlights a structural issue: policy mandates are being introduced without the systems required to implement them.

The closure of Suwung has been postponed repeatedly, from December 2025 to February 2026, then April, and now August 1, 2026. Each extension has cited the same constraint: Bali lacks the infrastructure to process more than 1,000 tonnes of waste generated daily. Even the latest timeline does not appear to be backed by a clear readiness assessment.

Governor I Wayan Koster has compelled citizens to manage waste at source, without providing the tools and infrastructure to do so. It is analogous to a doctor ordering a patient to change their lifestyle without providing a prescription, a referral, or a support system.

The consequences are already visible. Residents have resorted to open burning. Images that went viral on social media show neighborhoods blanketed in smoke, with some witnessing the smoke raised throughout Bali from an airplane window. The Housing and Public Works Agency of Denpasar reported a surge of 7 tonnes of waste being illegally dumped into rivers daily. The closure of Suwung simply outpaced provincial readiness – even though it’s been required by national law for over a decade.

The primary infrastructure solution being promoted is a Waste-to-Energy (WTE) facility, locally known as PSEL, which is not expected to be operational before 2028 at the earliest. WTE projects received recent policy acceleration through Presidential Regulation 109/2025 and Danantara, President Prabowo Subianto’s state investment vehicle, is acting as a political guarantor to speed up development. However, implementation timelines remain uncertain like other WTE projects in Indonesia in the last decade.

It should also be noted that environmental groups won a landmark civil lawsuit at the Supreme Court in 2017, where WTE incineration practices were found incompatible with the constitutional right to a healthy environment. Despite this ruling, proposals continue to emerge, including an 400 billion rupiah ($23 million) incineration facility in Klungkung and plans to integrate incinerators into TPS3R facilities — the Indonesian equivalent to a Material Recovery Facility. This is inconsistent with Bali Governor Regulation 47/2019, which defines TPS3R facilities as centers for reduction, reuse, and recycling, not waste burning.

Beyond regulatory inconsistencies, there are significant environmental and health concerns. Incineration produces ash that is highly toxic, laden with dioxins and furans, which require specialized hazardous waste management and cannot be safely reused as fertilizer or construction material.

International evidence also raises concerns. The European Union has excluded WTE incineration from its sustainable finance taxonomy due to emissions intensity. In the United Kingdom, recent reporting has identified waste incineration as among the most carbon-intensive forms of electricity generation. Scientifically, burning plastic is equivalent to burning fossil fuels. WTE creates long-term liabilities that will ultimately be borne by the public.

A further concern is “feedstock lock-in.” Incineration projects typically rely on long-term waste supply contracts, often prioritizing residual waste that represents only 5–10 percent of the total waste stream. In reality, it competes with recyclables too, as these materials have high calorific value suitable for burning. This risks undermining waste reduction and separation targets under Ministry of........

© The Diplomat