IT began with Emil Salim. In 1981—the third year of his term as the first Minister of the Environment in Indonesia—businessmen in Jakarta asked for facilities to dispose of poisonous waste. At the time, although thousands of factories were operating, no one had yet taken care of the waste that is so dangerous to human health. Emil carried out a number of feasibility studies and in 1993 agreed to appoint Bimantara to build a waste-pro