A material recovery facility (MRF) was recently inaugurated in East Java, Indonesia, a key milestone in Project STOP, to build Indonesia’s circular waste management system, according to project co-founder and polyolefin producer Borealis (Vienna, Austria; www.borealisgroup.com).

Located in Songgon municipality in Banyuwangi Regency, East Java, the MRF is part of the Project STOP Bayuwangi Hijau expansion plan, aiming to impact the lives of up to 2 mn individuals, create 1,000 full-time jobs and collect 230,000 t/y of waste, including 25,000 t of plastic. 

Co-founded with environmental group Systemiq (London, UK; https://www.systemiq.earth), Project STOP Banyuwangi started in 2017 – the initiative designs, implements, and scales circular economy solutions to prevent plastics marine pollution in Southeast Asia. 

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One of the largest of its kind in Indonesia to date, the new MRF will manage the sorting and the collection of waste from households in the region, including materials to be recycled, with a daily capacity to process up to 84 t of waste, Borealis said. At full scale by 2025, the MRF aims to collect all waste, including 3,300 t/y of plastic waste. By then it is expected to create around 200 jobs and service over 250,000 residents.

The state-of-the-art MRF is equipped to handle both organic and inorganic waste. Organic waste will be processed into compost while inorganic waste will be sorted and transferred to the recycling industry.

Borealis said Project STOP celebrated yet another milestone this year with the handover of its third city partnership in the Jembrana Regency, Bali. Going forward, the programme will be managed by the local government and the community. 

Project STOP Jembrana has offered formal waste collection services to more than 124,800 people and is both sorting waste for recycling and composting waste in its material-processing facility based at Peh landfill, near Negara municipality. The MRF has a daily capacity of processing 50 t of post-consumer waste, created 86 permanent jobs in the community, and has collected over 12,959 tonnes of waste, including 1,528 t of plastic.