Jakarta to extend its Ciliwung river trash screen model to 11 more rivers

Jakarta is taking a facility that already works on one river and planning to repeat it across the city. On Monday 5 October 2026, Governor Pramono Anung visited the Saringan Sampah TB Simatupang (SSTBS), the integrated trash screen on the Ciliwung River in Jagakarsa, South Jakarta, and announced that the provincial government will develop the same kind of handling on 11 other rivers that flow through the capital.

The rivers named are Kali Sunter, Cipinang, Jatikramat, Baru Timur, Baru Barat, Angke, Grogol, Krukut, Buaran, Kalimalang and Cakung. Together with the Ciliwung, they make up most of the 13 rivers the governor said run through Jakarta. The announcement was carried the same day by ANTARA, detikNews, Kompas, Republika, Okezone and Koran Jakarta, and by CNN Indonesia, iNews and NU Online the following morning.

What the governor announced at TB Simatupang

Pramono was accompanied by Dudi Gardesi, head of the Jakarta Environment Agency (DLH), together with the East Jakarta mayor, Munjirin, and the South Jakarta mayor, Syafrin Liputo. His stated purpose was to see waste handled at the upstream edge of the city, before it travels down the Ciliwung to the Manggarai floodgate in the centre of Jakarta.

The core message was one of replication. Speaking at the site, the governor told reporters that the city would develop handling like this on the 11 rivers in Jakarta, and he read out the list himself. He framed the expansion as part of a shift away from treating waste in isolated pieces.

With this, waste handling is no longer done partially. It is done in a more holistic and planned way, Governor Pramono Anung said at the TB Simatupang screen.

The governor tied the river screens directly to the rest of the city's waste system. He listed the refuse-derived fuel (RDF) plants at Rorotan and Bantargebang, the waste-to-energy programme, and the TPS3R neighbourhood recycling sites, and said that if these run well alongside the screen, the burden of waste arriving at the Manggarai floodgate can be reduced. Detik's photo desk and Republika both described the 11 planned facilities as Saringan Sampah Terpadu (SST), or integrated trash screens, with the stated aim of reducing the volume of waste sent to TPST Bantargebang.

How the Ciliwung screen works today

SSTBS is more than a barrier in the water. As Kabar Jakarta and Ipol.id describe it, floating material carried down the Ciliwung is held at the screen, lifted out with heavy equipment, then sorted, shredded and processed according to its type. Koran Jakarta reported that the site uses excavators to lift the waste and an industrial shredder to process it.

The composition matters. Kompas reported that at least 8 tonnes of waste from the upper Ciliwung is lifted each day, and that 70 percent of it is wood and bamboo. That is why the outputs lean heavily towards organic products. Pramono said that most of what is captured is organic, and coverage lists the products as compost, woodchip, maggot feed media, and material that can serve as RDF feedstock. Residue that cannot be used is pressed and sent onward.

DLH data cited by Sudut Pandang and Sketsindonews give the clearest picture of the facility's track record. From August 2023 to 12 September 2026, SSTBS handled 32,677 tonnes of waste, an average of around 30.2 tonnes per day. Of this, 17,920 tonnes have been processed, made up of 5,645 tonnes of compost and 12,275 tonnes of woodchip. In other words, more than half of everything the screen has caught has already been turned into a usable product.

The site has also shown it can absorb surges. Kabar Jakarta noted that in March 2025, after heavy rain in Bogor, more than 1,500 tonnes of waste carried downstream was lifted out at SSTBS. It also reported that in 2023 the facility converted 145,290 kilograms of screened waste into RDF.

A note on the figures. Different sources describe different measures of throughput. Kompas gives a minimum of 8 tonnes lifted per day, Kabar Jakarta cites a 2023 DLH performance document putting capacity at around 15 tonnes per day and a January 2026 report of around 8 tonnes per day under normal conditions, while the DLH cumulative data work out to an average of 30.2 tonnes per day. These are not in conflict so much as measuring different things: routine daily intake versus a long run average that includes storm surges such as the one in March 2025. River waste volumes depend heavily on rainfall and water flow upstream.

Why intercepting waste in rivers matters

For Jakarta, river waste is a flood management question as much as a waste question. Material that passes the upstream screen keeps moving towards the dense urban core, where it can build up at floodgates and pumping stations and slow the flow of water. Okezone reported the governor describing the screen as helping to reduce Jakarta's waste burden and as a means of flood control. Kabar Jakarta noted that the screen's role becomes most important when heavy rain in Bogor and Depok sends large volumes of debris towards the capital.

It is also a leakage question. Waste that is not caught in the river will eventually reach the sea. Each screen placed on a river is a fixed collection point that turns diffuse, hard to reach litter into a stream of material that can be counted, sorted and processed. With Jakarta generating around 9,000 tonnes of waste a day, according to Kabar Jakarta, a dependable point of capture on each major waterway adds a layer of protection for Jakarta Bay that does not rely on every household getting things right.

Dudi Gardesi put the logic plainly.

We hold back and handle the waste earlier. So we are not waiting for it to pile up downstream before cleaning it up, said Dudi Gardesi, head of the Jakarta Environment Agency.

He added that what the city is building is not just a trash screen but a more complete management system. That matches the policy direction set by Governor's Instruction Number 5 of 2026, which moves Jakarta from the old collect and dump pattern to one of sort, collect and process, as NU Online and Koran Jakarta noted.

From river debris to compost, woodchip and fuel

The Ciliwung experience shows that river waste is not simply a disposal burden. Because most of it is wood and bamboo, it is well suited to recovery. Woodchip can serve as a biomass material or a bulking agent for composting, compost returns nutrients to parks and green spaces, and the drier, non organic fraction can become RDF.

The connection to Jakarta's RDF capacity is significant. Kompas reported that the RDF facility at Rorotan in North Jakarta is projected to process 548 tonnes of waste per day in 2026, and to stabilise at around 1,000 tonnes per day from 2027 to 2029. Kabar Jakarta reported that DLH has planned since 2025 to upgrade the TB Simatupang site with additional machines and equipment so that more waste from water bodies can be processed into RDF. As the 11 new screens come online, they could supply a steady, sorted fraction to that network, with the organic share staying local as compost and woodchip.

This is the circular economy at a practical level. Rather than lifting debris from rivers and trucking it to Bantargebang, the screen model sorts at the point of capture and sends each fraction to its best use.

Sirkularium's view

For government and public institutions, Jakarta's announcement offers several useful lessons.

First, replicate what has a track record. SSTBS has three years of operating data, a known material mix and a clear set of outputs. Building the 11 new screens on that foundation reduces technical risk and allows the city to plan capacity using real numbers rather than estimates. Publishing the operating data for each new site in the same format would make performance easy to compare and to improve over time.

Second, design each screen for its own river. The Ciliwung carries a large share of wood and bamboo from forested upstream areas. Rivers such as Angke, Grogol or Cakung pass through denser residential and industrial areas and are likely to carry more plastic and mixed household waste. A characterisation study at each site before design would help match sorting equipment, storage space and offtake routes to the actual material, especially for the plastic fraction that is better suited to recycling or RDF than to composting.

Third, plan for peaks, not averages. The March 2025 surge of more than 1,500 tonnes shows that the true test of a river screen comes during the rainy season. Space to stockpile, mobile equipment that can move between sites, and agreements with RDF and compost offtakers to absorb surges would help the network perform when it matters most.

Fourth, keep the upstream work going. A screen is a safety net, not a substitute for source separation. The sorting movement under Governor's Instruction Number 5 of 2026 and the TPS3R network reduce what reaches rivers in the first place, while cooperation with Bogor and Depok on the upper catchments can reduce what flows into Jakarta from outside.

What to watch next: the construction schedule and budget for the 11 integrated screens, which rivers are prioritised first, whether the TB Simatupang upgrade for RDF production moves ahead, and how the screens connect to the Rorotan RDF plant as it ramps up. If delivered as planned, Jakarta will have a citywide network of river collection points, each turning what used to be flood debris into compost, woodchip and fuel.