RRICO.ID, Jakarta - The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) has firmly asserted that Indonesia can completely resolve its national waste crisis by 2029. This ambitious target relies on the immediate implementation of a presidential regulation (Perpres) on waste sorting, which would mandate all local governments to issue supporting regional regulations (Perda).

Agus Kismanto, a researcher from BRIN’s Center for Energy Conversion and Conservation Research (PRKKE), emphasized that solving the waste crisis requires mobilizing all civil servants (ASN) and citizens to systematically sort waste at its source.

"Mobilize all civil servants and community members to ensure successful waste sorting. Implement punishments for those who fail to do so, by 2027 for village communities and by 2028 for civil servants," Agus Kismanto added during the Waste Management Technology Webinar on Tuesday, May 26, 2026, as quoted on BRIN's official website.

To guarantee the success of this nationwide initiative, BRIN has proposed a structured timeline coupled with severe legal and financial consequences for non-compliance. Under this framework, the government would map out every village's progress using a color-coded compliance system, marking disobedient communities in red and law-abiding ones in green.

The regulatory and enforcement roadmap is designed with a series of critical milestones. In 2026, the government is urged to issue the initial Presidential Regulation (Perpres) on waste sorting to provide a firm legal foundation for local governments. By 2027, the administration is expected to formalize the Perpres frameworks, initiate quarterly evaluations, and introduce formal punishments for non-compliant village communities.

Legal enforcement will escalate dramatically by 2028, targeting both state employees and ordinary citizens. Civil servants face direct cuts to their performance allowances (Tunkin) if their home villages fail to achieve a 100 percent waste-sorting rate. Furthermore, citizens living in non-compliant villages will face temporary suspensions of state social assistance (Bansos) and public healthcare benefits (BPJS).

"By 2028, we will implement law enforcement, cutting performance allowances (Tunkin) for civil servants whose villages don't sort 100 percent of their waste. We will suspend BPJS (Social Security) services and other social assistance services for residents whose villages don't sort their waste," Agus emphasized.

Beyond sorting policies, the proposed national strategy includes utilizing former mining lands and excavated C-category quarries to process wet organic waste, alongside officially appointing private investors to scale up waste processing facilities.

Addressing technological limitations at the household level, Agus introduced an innovative organic waste processor developed by BRIN called Lahsamor. Unlike conventional composters that are often impractical, bulky, and slow, Lahsamor is uniquely engineered to quickly destroy domestic organic waste directly in residential kitchens rather than focusing on generating large volumes of fertilizer.

The innovator outlined that the device is specifically favored by homemakers because it remains entirely odorless, takes an exceptionally long time to fill up, does not require a complex process to extract compost, and successfully prevents maggot infestations under proper operation.

To maintain the efficiency of the device, the inventor shared vital operational guidelines. If a Lahsamor unit begins to emit an odor, it indicates that the daily organic input has exceeded its safe limit of 1 kilogram per day. Users must halt waste input until the smell subsides, which can be accelerated by moving the unit to a warmer or more ventilated area.

Additionally, the appearance of maggots signifies that meat, or fish products have entered the system, which Lahsamor cannot process in large quantities. Users are also advised to keep the unit's perforation holes clean and ensure its door is kept unlatched when not in use to allow mice to enter easily rather than gnawing through the outer walls.

The urgent necessity for these aggressive measures was further reinforced by Yopi, the Deputy for Regional Research and Innovation at BRIN. He aserted that waste management is no longer a routine sanitation matter, but a highly critical, strategic environmental issue that requires massive systemic synchronization from upstream to downstream sectors.

Currently, the national data reveals a severe shortfall in environmental targets, as only about 24 percent of the nation's waste—amounting to roughly 37,000 tons—is actively managed. This stands in stark contrast to the state's National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) for 2025–2029, which mandates that 51.21 percent of all waste must be properly managed.

"It turns out that only about 24 percent of waste, or around 37,000 tons, is managed. Meanwhile, the 2025-2029 RPJMN target is 51.21 percent of waste that needs to be managed, so this figure indicates that it has not been achieved," Yopi explained.

Yopi described this unfulfilled metric as a sharp wake-up call and a clear alarm for local governments. He concluded that regional administrations must completely shift their administrative paradigms away from simply collecting and dumping waste into landfills, moving instead toward reducing and managing waste directly at its source.

This regional success relies on two interconnected pillars: a fundamental behavioral shift among citizens upstream and the widespread distribution of affordable, field-proven, and easy-to-operate technologies orchestrated by strong public policies. ***