With the support of International Environmental Technology Centre (IETC) of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the IGES Centre Collaborating with UNEP on Environmental Technologies (CCET), a small recycling center has been constructed in Toba Samosir regency, Lake Toba which is designated as one of the top 10 priority tourism destinations in Indonesia, and its inauguration ceremony was held on 29th February. This recycling center has waste collection scheme same as regular municipality waste collection as public service, but also has a waste bank at the center to collect and treat valuable plastic waste. These plastic will be recycled or recovered by several flows/techniques depending on its material types. For example, the facility is equipped with pyrolysis treatment to produce oil from plastic waste. The facility has unique concept of “no rejection of waste”. It accepts not only organic and inorganic waste, but also any kinds of plastic and even hazardous waste, because if rejected, those rejected waste would end up in open dumping. Even hazardous waste will be stored temporally at the mini landfill at the facility.
The mandate of IETC, as agreed in Decision 16/34 of UNEP Governing Council, is the transfer of environmentally sound technologies (EST) to developing countries and countries with economies in transition.