Octalia Stefani, CEO of waste-management startup Rezycology, has raised concerns that the government’s Waste-to-Energy (WTE) program could threaten Indonesia’s existing waste and recycling economy if it is implemented without careful integration into the broader waste-management system.

Stefani said the core of a sustainable circular economy in waste management is waste separation, which involves a large network of workers ranging from informal waste pickers and collectors to recycling communities.

“If everything is sent straight to Waste-to-Energy, waste collectors could lose their jobs and recycling communities could collapse,” she said as quoted by Katadata.co.id on Monday, January 12, 2026.

For that reason, she supports positioning WTE projects at the very end of the waste value chain, rather than turning them into a system that absorbs waste from the upstream stage.

“Waste-to-Energy is indeed part of the solution. But in my view, it should be placed at the end as a final option,” she said.

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