The War on Sampah
Our last three articles were, let’s be honest, a bit grim. Not All Composting Machines Are Equal told you most machines don’t actually make compost. Dehydrators Are the Chemical Fertilisers of Waste Management told you drying waste isn’t recycling it. Incinerators Are the Landfills of the Sky told you burning it is worse again. All factual. All necessary. All negative.
This one’s different. This one is a call to arms.
And the call isn’t ours to make. In February 2026, President Prabowo stood up at a national meeting in Bogor and declared a war on waste, perang terhadap sampah, naming Bali as the front line.11 He’s right. This is a real fight, with real casualties, against an enemy that never sleeps, never negotiates, and gets stronger every day we sit on our hands. The enemy is sampah. And right now, sampah is winning.
The President called for schools on the beach and communities with rubbish bags, and that instinct is sound. Bali cleans up beautifully; gotong royong is one of our great weapons. But a war isn’t won on the beach. It’s won on supply lines. Too many cleanups still end with the day’s haul set alight in a pile, which just moves the enemy from the sand into the sky.11 If we’re serious about this war, we have to fight it where the enemy is actually made and moved: at the source.
Know Your Enemy
Look at the battle map. Bali alone produces somewhere between 1.25 and 1.6 million tonnes of waste a year. More than half of it, 52%, is mismanaged: 22% dumped inland, 19% burned in the open and 11% straight into our rivers. Most of the rest gets collected and trucked to landfills that are already bursting. And the amount that actually gets recycled? 4%.1 As for the gap between those two headline figures, that’s waste so far off the books nobody even counts it.
Now look at how far the enemy has advanced.
It’s in our lungs. Nearly one in five tonnes of Bali’s waste is burned in the open, and that smoke carries fine particulates deep into the airways of whoever lives downwind: aggravated asthma, bronchitis, and heart and lung damage, with kids and the elderly copping it worst.2
It’s in our stomachs. Leachate from open dumps carries heavy metals and pathogens into the groundwater our families drink, and the plastic in our rivers breaks down into the fish, the salt and the rice on our plates.1
It’s in our brains. Literally. Researchers publishing in Nature Medicine found roughly a plastic spoon’s worth of microplastic in human brain tissue, around ten times the concentration found in the liver or kidneys, and 50% more than in brains sampled just eight years earlier.3
An enemy that occupies your air, your water, your food and your own body is not an “environmental issue.” It’s an invasion. And you don’t answer an invasion with a strongly worded committee meeting.
What This War Doesn’t Need
Every war attracts profiteers and spectators. Three things we can happily do without:
Incinerators. Burning sampah doesn’t destroy it. It airlifts it behind our own lines. An enemy you could see on the ground becomes one you can’t: dioxins and fine particulates drifting over our rooftops, settling on our crops, breathed in by our kids. We call incinerators the landfills of the sky for a reason.
Dehydrators. Expensive machines that turn food waste into sterile powder and call it a day. A blunt weapon at a premium price.
Disaster porn. The foreign press have discovered our waste crisis, and haven’t they had a field day. Drone shots of burning piles, sombre music, a correspondent in a crisp linen shirt shaking their head at a river.4 Fair enough, the crisis is real. But a story that ends at the burning pile misses the better one happening a few kilometres up the road: river warriors pulling plastic out by the million kilos, resorts hitting 97% diversion, villages composting their own waste against the odds. So to the ABC and every other outlet flying in: the invitation stands. Come film the fight, not just the wounds.
The Arsenal Is Already Here
Now the good news, and it’s the whole reason this article exists: every weapon we need to win this war already exists, is already proven, and is already operating on Indonesian soil. Our research paper Waste Ends Here catalogued the lot:1
Aerobic composting. Community-scale facilities handling 5 to 200 tonnes a day, turning organics into living compost in roughly 10 to 12 weeks. Done aerobically, it slashes the methane you’d get from the same waste rotting in a landfill. Every tonne composted this way is a tonne that isn’t off-gassing methane under a pile at Suwung.
Rapid composters (aerobic digestion). Enclosed units that do the same job in up to 24 hours, in machine sizes from 100 kg to 1,000 kg, for hotels, restaurants, markets, schools and hospitals. Designed, built and serviced right here in Indonesia.
Black Soldier Fly. Larvae that demolish wet, fatty food waste and hand back protein animal feed and frass fertiliser. Named in the Bali Economic Kerthi Roadmap 2045 as a key technology for source-based organic processing.
Biodigesters. Sealed vessels that capture methane as usable biogas and produce liquid fertiliser. Perfect wherever there’s a big organic stream and a power bill that needs shrinking.
Recycling plastic, glass and metal. Digitally connected waste banks, pioneered in Bali by Griya Luhu, channelling clean household inorganics to licensed collectors and recyclers.
And here’s the force multiplier: pull the organics out at source, and the plastic, glass and metal left behind are cleaner and actually worth recovering. As the report puts it, “the whole-stream result is always better than the sum of its parts.”1
Every Weapon Needs Ammunition: Source Separation
No rifle fires without rounds, and the ammunition of this entire war is separated waste. Composters need clean organics. BSF larvae need clean organics. Recyclers need uncontaminated plastic, glass and metal. Mixed waste is useless to everyone except the landfill. And the landfill is closing.
Waste Ends Here doesn’t muck around on this point: mandatory source separation “is a structural prerequisite for every other intervention to work.”1 Not a nice-to-have. Not a policy preference. The foundation of everything.
It’s been the law in Bali since 2019 under Governor Regulation No. 47. But as the report notes: “The regulation exists. The practice does not.”1
And the people? Ready and waiting. 87% of Bali residents say they’re willing to sort their waste at source if the system supports them.1 That’s an army standing at attention, waiting on equipment that costs next to nothing. A few bins and the habit of using them. That’s the weapon.
Battles Already Won
This war is winnable, because it’s been won before. And because the local resistance is already on the front foot.
Abroad
Kamikatsu, Japan lost its incinerator to dioxin rules, went all-in on separation at source, and now diverts 81% of its waste. The Japanese national average is 20%.5
South Korea took food waste recycling from 2% in 1995 to 95%, with pay-as-you-throw pricing and a nationwide ban on landfilling food waste.6
Tilos, Greece was sending 87% of its waste to landfill in 2021. Two years later it was certified the world’s first zero-waste island, recycling or composting roughly 90% on-island, landfill shut for good.7
Capannori, Italy hit 90% source separation with door-to-door collection and pay-as-you-throw pricing, and saved over €2 million in a single year doing it.8
At home
Sungai Watch: 120 river warriors, more than 400 river barriers, over 4 million kilograms of plastic pulled out of our waterways.9
Bali’s own hotels: Waterbom at 96.4% landfill diversion, Potato Head and Mulia both at 97.5%.1 Not pilot programs. Operating businesses, hitting numbers most of the world only writes policy papers about.
The community front: Urban Compost Bali composting for more than 80 desa. Merah Putih Hijau running village circular economies that close the loop back to local farmers. Denpasar rolling out 4,700 Teba Modern composting wells rooted in Tri Hita Karana.1
The pattern is the same everywhere: get source separation right, and 80 to 95% landfill diversion follows.1
The Clock Is Ticking
Here’s the forcing function. Suwung, the island’s four-decade monument to “chuck it and forget it,” stopped accepting organic waste on April 1. On August 1, the gates shut for good.10 That’s weeks away. Waste transporters are being instructed to refuse unsorted loads. Hospitality businesses that don’t sort face permit suspension, licence revocation and, under Law 18/2008, criminal charges.1
And we’ve already seen what happens when the ban arrives before the infrastructure: households resorting to burning and river dumping.4 That’s not a reason to delay the fight. It’s the reason to build the upstream system now, fast, everywhere. There is no “away” to throw things to anymore. Enlistment stopped being optional months ago.
Your Marching Orders
Straight from the report:1
Households: three bins, starting tonight. Organics to your compost, your teba or your collection service. Recyclables to the bank sampah. And the genuine leftovers, the multi-layer sachets and mixed packaging that can’t yet be composted or recycled, kept separate and clean for managed collection. That last bin should be the smallest one in your kitchen, and it gets smaller the better you sort. Ten minutes a day. The front line runs through your kitchen.
Businesses: if you generate more than 100 kg of organic waste a day, process it on-site or contract a licensed near-site processor. The resorts already at 96 to 97% have proven this is an operational decision, not a moonshot.
Banjars and desa: community processing hubs serving 2 to 5 villages at 5 to 20 tonnes a day, with the compost sold back to local farmers. That’s the Merah Putih Hijau model, scaled.
Government: enforce what’s already written. Certify operators. And formalise the pemulung: 4.2 million informal waste workers nationally, recovering an estimated Rp 19 trillion in value every year with zero protections. They’ve been fighting this war unpaid and unthanked for decades. Put them on the payroll.
Come Together, or Keep Losing
Wars like this aren’t won by spectators, and they aren’t won by imported machines. They’re won by locals defending their own patch. It was Kamikatsu’s residents sorting into 45 categories. It was Korean households weighing their food scraps. It’ll be us: warga, banjars, businesses, pemulung and government, shoulder to shoulder.
We’ll give the last word to the report: “Do not let the perfect be the enemy of progress. Bali’s waste crisis is not going to wait for a flawless research paper. It needs people, in government, in industry, in communities, to act on what we already know.”1
The enemy is in our rivers, our fields, our lungs and our kids’ bloodstreams. The weapons are built, and built here. The tactics are proven on four continents. And 87% of us are already willing to fight.
The war on sampah gets won the way every people’s war gets won: banjar by banjar, bin by bin.
Enlist. Separate at source. The waste ends here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the “war on sampah”?
It’s the phrase President Prabowo used in February 2026 when he declared a war on waste (perang terhadap sampah) and named Bali as the front line.11 At its core it’s the fight to stop mismanaged waste contaminating Indonesia’s air, soil, water and food. In Bali, 52% of waste is mismanaged through open dumping, open burning and river disposal. The war framing is deliberate: the damage is measurable, it’s advancing, and it only gets reversed by organised, collective action, starting with source separation rather than cleanups alone.
Why does everything start with source separation?
Because no processing technology works on mixed waste. Composters, black soldier fly systems, biodigesters and recyclers all need clean feedstock. As Waste Ends Here puts it, source separation “is a structural prerequisite for every other intervention to work.” Separate first, and everything else becomes possible.
Don’t we need incinerators for whatever’s left over?
A genuinely residual fraction, roughly 7 to 15% in a well-run system, will always need managed disposal. But there’s a world of difference between an open dump swallowing 1,800 tonnes of mixed waste a day and a facility handling 100 to 200 tonnes of verified residue. Fix separation first and the “leftover” problem shrinks by an order of magnitude. Burning the mixed stream just moves the landfill into the sky.
What can I do this week?
Put a second bin in your kitchen and keep organics out of your general waste. Join or start a bank sampah for your recyclables. If your business produces more than 100 kg of food waste a day, sort out on-site or near-site processing before the Suwung gates close on August 1. And read Waste Ends Here. It’s the battle plan.
Shiva Industries builds Indonesia’s most advanced rapid composting machines in Denpasar, Bali. Every machine produces lab-tested, living compost, backed by our in-house laboratory, periodic Sucofindo validation, Udayana University R&D partnerships, and same-day local service. Request a site assessment at shivaindustries.tech/contact.
References
1. Shiva Industries Indonesia, Waste Ends Here: The Case for Decentralised Waste Management in Bali (2026). Source for all Bali waste, diversion, policy and enforcement figures unless otherwise noted.
2. US EPA, “Human Health: Backyard Burning” (archived). Health effects of fine particulates from open waste burning.
3. Nihart et al., “Bioaccumulation of microplastics in decedent human brains,” Nature Medicine (2025).
4. South China Morning Post, “Residents on Indonesia’s Bali resort to burning trash after landfill ban on organic waste” (April 2026). One of many foreign reports on the crisis.
5. Nippon.com, “The Kamikatsu Zero Waste Campaign: How a Little Town Achieved a Top Recycling Rate”.
6. World Economic Forum, “South Korea once recycled 2% of its food waste. Now it recycles 95%” (2019).
7. Mission Zero Academy, “Tilos becomes the first Zero Waste City certified in Greece and the first island of the certification” (2023).
8. Zero Waste Europe, “The Story of Capannori”.
9. Sungai Watch impact reporting, figures to early 2025.
10. The Bali Sun, “Bali’s Biggest Landfill To Be Closed Before Peak Tourism Season” (2026). Residual waste accepted until July 31, 2026; full closure August 1, 2026.
11. Lukas Fort, “Indonesia’s war on waste,” New Mandala (March 2026). President Prabowo’s February 2026 declaration; cleanups ending in open burning of mixed waste.
