View of collapsed coal ash impoundment and closed power plant in North Carolina that caused the 2014 Dan river coal ash spill. Photo: U.S. environmental protection agency/Wikimedia Commons The Indonesian government has declared coal ash is no longer a hazardous waste product, despite containing heavy metals such as mercury, lead and arsenic, in a nod to industry efforts for greater deregulation. Fly ash and bottom ash from the burning of coal in power plants or other industrial facilities are now deemed inert or non-hazardous waste, under a new government regulation issued February 2. The regulation is a derivative of the so-called omnibus law on job creation — a controversial package of deregulation measures passed by parliament last October that activists warned would serve the interests of the mining and “dirty energy” industry.