The Hidden Toll of Yogyakarta’s Green Tourism: The Hard Realities Behind Malioboro’s Electric Trishaws

Yogyakarta, Indonesia — Beneath the tropical midday sun beating down on the asphalt of Yogyakarta, 72-year-old Ponijo was pedaling his electric trishaw (becak listrik) from Pasar Ngasem toward Pojok Benteng Wetan. It was a routine two-kilometer journey, until a sharp clack abruptly halted the vehicle. The metallic fracture reverberated from the undercarriage straight through to the handlebars.

For Ponijo, this mechanical failure marked the temporary demise of his Selis electric trishaw—a first-generation vehicle acquired through a special regional autonomy fund (Dana Keistimewaan). The gear teeth of the dynamo had shattered.

Stranded and physically unable to manually pedal the heavy iron frame, Ponijo was rescued by Kamsi, a fellow trishaw driver and close friend. Using his foot from the saddle of his motorcycle, Kamsi pushed Ponijo and his disabled trishaw 8.7 kilometers across the city to an electrical repair shop on Jalan Imogiri.

"I had to push him with the motorcycle. He simply wasn’t strong enough to pedal it manually," Kamsi recalled.

Ponijo’s ordeal was far from over. Shortly after replacing the dynamo, the digital dashboard flashed another alarming warning. On his way home down Jalan Parangtritis toward Manding, the battery level plummeted to zero. Seven out of the 16 lithium-ion battery plates had completely failed.

Finding specialized electric vehicle (EV) mechanics in Yogyakarta is an uphill battle. "The repair shops are hard to find. Everything relies on electricity, and local mechanics are scarce," Ponijo explained.

The repair shop quoted Rp350,000 per battery cell, bringing Ponijo’s total repair bill to nearly Rp10,000,000. To put this in perspective, Ponijo typically stations himself outside Beringharjo Market from morning until afternoon, earning a daily net income of just Rp60,000 to Rp100,000 ($4 to $6.50 USD). The cost of repairing the battery amounts to years of savings—a financial chasm far exceeding his daily earnings.

For nearly two months, Ponijo’s trishaw languished in the workshop, forcing him to borrow Kamsi’s motorized trishaw just to make a living. Ponijo’s story is not an isolated incident; it is a window into the unintended consequences of Yogyakarta’s ambitious green transition.

Chronology of a Forced Transition: From Pedals to Plugs

The push toward electrification in Indonesia’s cultural capital is central to the local government’s modernization agenda. Yogyakarta Governor Sri Sultan Hamengku Buwono X announced plans to phase out conventional motorized trishaws (bentor) in the iconic Malioboro tourism district, replacing them progressively with an eventual fleet of 1,000 eco-friendly electric trishaws.

These vehicles have trickled into the hands of aging drivers like Ponijo through various channels: government programs, ministerial grants, private corporations, universities, and political parties.

Today, approximately 350 electric trishaws operate around Malioboro. However, a significant portion of these vehicles remain parked and unusable due to a cascade of technical failures: melted wiring, fragile body frames, excessively slow speeds, and a severe lack of repair infrastructure. Despite hundreds of electric trishaws operating in the zone, the city provides only a single charging station, located in the Ketandan parking lot.

Official Disconnections: Where Do the Hazardous Wastes Go?

The rapid introduction of electric trishaws has created an invisible ecological ticking time bomb: battery waste.

Each electric trishaw relies on a pack of 16 battery cells. When a fraction of these cells fail, as in Ponijo’s case, the entire pack is often compromised. Yet, local authorities appear entirely unprepared to manage the hazardous fallout.

When asked about the disposal of spent lithium and sealed lead-acid (SLA) batteries, Agha Perdana Putro, Head of the Non-Terminal Transport Section at the Yogyakarta Transportation Agency (Dishub), offered a purely bureaucratic response.

"So far, this is still something we are coordinating with related agencies, especially the Environmental Agency regarding B3 [hazardous toxic waste] management," Agha stated. He claimed the issue falls under the responsibility of the city’s broader EV ecosystem rather than the trishaw program alone.

However, this supposed coordination is news to the city’s environmental watchdogs. Very Tri Jatmiko, Head of Planning and Environmental Control at the Yogyakarta City Environmental Agency (DLH), flatly denied any communication.

"We have never been involved in this planning function," Very stated.

Currently, the DLH relies on household drop-box stations scattered across local sub-districts. These boxes are designed strictly for small-scale household hazardous waste, such as used neon lamps and small dry-cell batteries—they are completely unequipped to process heavy-metal-laden, toxic electric vehicle battery packs.

"We were never invited to discussions," Very added. "In fact, external parties came to us asking about it, even though we hadn’t been briefed on anything."

Manufacturing Blind Spots and the Absence of Regulatory Frameworks

The confusion extends upward to the manufacturers. In Kalasan, Sleman, the iron frames of these electric trishaws are designed by PT Langit Biru Indonesia (LBI) and manufactured by PT Yogya Presisi Teknikatama Industri (YPTI), turning a 1930s cultural artifact into a modern "green tourism" product complete with a five-year frame warranty.

Yet, this corporate pride evaporates when the conversation shifts to battery disposal.

Ary Tjahyono of LBI and Petrus Tedja of YPTI admitted that without binding regulations or established take-back mechanisms, the private sector’s hands are tied.

"Forgive me, but even I personally, when my remote control batteries run out, I just throw them away because I don’t know where I’m supposed to dispose of them," Ary conceded.

Petrus echoed the sentiment: "We are manufacturers, not waste processors. Processors have their own certifications."

For developers and local mechanics alike, the endgame of these power sources remains a mystery. Abdullah, the founder of E-Clont, a local EV repair shop, shrugged when asked about the ultimate destination of dead batteries.

"Right now, there is no system… waste management is not our field. Perhaps the relevant departments need to figure out a strategy," he said.

Scientific Solutions vs. Policy Vacuums

If left unmanaged, dumping these spent batteries into facilities like the Piyungan Landfill will cause toxic heavy metals to leach into the soil and groundwater, triggering an ecological disaster.

Behind the walls of the Chemical Engineering Department at Gadjah Mada University (UGM), Dr. Indra Perdana—a alumnus of Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden—refuses to view dead batteries as mere trash.

"It’s not garbage. It’s a resource!" Indra asserted.

Indra champions the concept of second-life batteries. When a battery’s State of Health (SoH) drops below 80%—the threshold where vehicles like Ponijo’s lose range and power—it is considered retired for vehicular use. However, these batteries still retain significant energy capacity and can be repurposed for stationary solar power storage systems, later cascading down to power smaller electronics before final recycling.

Crucially, these dead cells contain concentrated deposits of high-value metals—lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese—in concentrations far richer than raw ores extracted directly from the earth. In his laboratory, Indra’s team can dismantle, sort, and process spent batteries into black mass, which is then extracted to manufacture 100% recovered raw materials for new batteries.

Yet, Indra emphasizes that science cannot operate without economic policy. He advocates for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), a framework where EV manufacturers incorporate a recycling deposit fee at the point of sale to guarantee that institutions can safely collect and process spent batteries.

Tragically, a comprehensive recycling roadmap remains absent in Indonesia, despite the issuance of the 2019 Presidential Regulation on the acceleration of electric vehicles. The Ministry of Environment projects that EV battery waste in Indonesia will skyrocket to 120,000 tons by 2030, peaking by 2040. Currently, Indonesia’s domestic recycling capacity stands at a mere 20,000 tons per year.

This contrasts sharply with regions like the European Union, where stringent frameworks like the New Battery Law enforce strict EPR mandates. In countries like Belgium, automated logistics networks tied to official dealerships ensure that degraded batteries (below 70–80% health) are funneled directly into advanced hydrometallurgical recycling facilities like Umicore, creating a closed-loop economy that even allows for the import of foreign battery waste.

Socio-Economic Implications: A New Form of Inequality

Activists argue that Yogyakarta’s electric trishaw policy is not just ecologically flawed, but socially unjust.

Rizky Abiyoga, Head of Advocacy and Campaigns at Walhi Yogyakarta, calls the government’s emissions-reduction narrative misplaced. "If you want to follow the energy transition agenda, public transportation sectors should be strengthened instead," Abi argued.

He notes that the root cause of urban pollution in Yogyakarta is not informal sector trishaw drivers, but the unchecked surge of private motor vehicles. By pushing vulnerable traditional workers into market-driven green schemes without structural safety nets, the state is deepening economic inequality.

Hema Situmorang, a campaigner with the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), warns that the "eco-friendly" badge of urban EVs masks severe suffering at the resource extraction frontier. Indonesia is a leading global supplier of nickel; the domestic push for electric vehicles inevitably drives the expansion of destructive mining operations that devastate indigenous lands and water sources upstream.

Novita Indri, a Fossil Energy Campaigner at Trend Asia, lambasts the policy as a performative "gimmick."

"We see the government making reckless policies. They just say: Let’s buy electric bicycles, let’s give 500 old trishaws an upgrade, and leave it at that," Novita said.

She underscores the cruelty of forcing a rapid energy transition without calculating the human cost. When a Rp5 million to Rp7 million battery dies, the financial burden falls squarely on impoverished drivers like Ponijo, with zero state subsidies or safety nets provided.

Furthermore, Novita dismantles the illusion of zero emissions. Urban electric trishaws charged from local power grids ultimately rely on electricity generated by coal-fired power plants (PLTU) in Java.

"When electricity usage in households or public infrastructure increases, the demand on coal-fired power plants also increases. That means more coal is burned. Did the government calculate that? No," she concluded.

Without a holistic roadmap encompassing infrastructure, worker welfare, and hazardous waste management, Yogyakarta’s green transition risks driving its most vulnerable citizens deeper into debt—proving that superficial environmentalism often carries a profoundly human price.