Bali to turn garbage into fertilizer

Antara News, Saturday, April 24, 2010 15:41 WIB

Denpasar, Bali (ANTARA News) - Bali provincial administration is exploring ways to turn garbage into non-organic fertilizer in a bid to promote environmental cleanliness on the island of paradise.

"In the 2010 amended regional budget (APBD) the local government will allocate funds to build three garbage management factories," Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika said at a meeting with various public elements here on Saturday.

The governor said the first phase of small scale garbage management factories would be built around the area of Besakih temple in Karangasem, Goa Lawah in Klungkung, and Kintamani Batur temple in Bangli.

The environmentally-friendly factories at the three locations are expected to manage and turn the garbage in those areas into non-organic fertilizer.

"We want to turn the garbage there to have economic value for the local people," the governor said in the company of his deputy Aan Puspayoga.

On the occasion, Governor Made Mangku Pastika said the garbage management into non-organic fertilizer was in line with the local government target to make Bali a green province.

"If such a pioneer project yields a good result, the number of small scale garbage management factory will be increased," the governor said.

Special Report: Creating Clean, Green Cities of the Future

Jakarta Globe, April 11, 2010, Dody Rochadi

Jakarta is far from being classified as a green city.

On 16 February 2005, an international agreement on how to tackle climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, was ratified by over 140 countries. At that time, the mayor of Seattle, Greg Nickels, decided to promote the aspirations of the Kyoto Protocol in Seattle. He also encouraged other cities in the United States to follow suit by urging those in positions of leadership to consider adopting the principles of the Kyoto Protocol through the Climate Protection Agreement and creating green cities.

By June 2005, 141 mayors had signed on. By early 2009, the agreement had been signed by 935 mayors, in cities with a combined population of 83 million.

Today, many city mayors are working to get their cities focused on the environment. Though trying to achieve green city status, leaders are acting to improve the quality of the air, lower the use of non-renewable resources, encourage the building of green homes, offices, and other structures, create more green spaces, support environmentally friendly methods of transportation, and offer recycling programs.

The United Arab Emirates and China are two vastly different countries. But several years from now, they will have one thing in common — they both will have the first green cities in the world. Yes, China and the United Arab Emirates are currently preparing cities that have everything human beings could ever dream of such as clean air and clean water.

China is a country know for being polluted. No visitor returns without remarking on it. Car headlights gleam through the smog.

In April 2007, the government twice issued its most severe Air Pollution Index rating, which advises that the aged and ill should stay indoors.

This condition has been going on for a very long time, until the government embarked on a bold, expensive experiment to see whether pollution and waste – of all forms, not just the kind that taints the air – can be drastically reduced or even eliminated.

In March 2007, the government broke ground on what it called the world’s first eco-city. Designed by the London-based global consulting firm Arup Group, Dongtan is to be built on an island that is just a ferry ride away from central Shanghai. The government expects that by the time of the Expo, the new enclave would be a showcase city of 8,000 and it would have 1 million residents by 2050.

Dongtan will ban all polluting cars, even the most advanced hybrids. It will dig canals for waterways. On its streets, people will get around using electric cars, bicycles or just their legs.

The city would recycle as much as possible, including all its wastewater, grow food on its own environmentally-sensitive farms, and create all its own energy in non-polluting ways — wind, solar, and the burning of human and animal waste.

Most of these technologies are not new, and many are commonly used in Western Europe, Asia or the United States. What will make Dongtan unique is the integration of environmentally friendly practices and the strict exclusion of older, polluting ones.

If it is unusual for a business deal to be witnessed by the heads of two of the world’s most powerful nations, so too is the idea of creating from scratch an eco-city as large as Manhattan and more populous than Edinburgh or Atlanta.

But building cities virtually overnight is nothing new for the Chinese. In 1980, the central government created a special economic zone for Shenzhen, at the time a small fishing village about an hour from Hong Kong. These days, it’s a sprawling metropolis of 9 million.

While China will have Dongtan, the United Arab Emirates will have its own green city which will be named Masdar City. It is a city which is designed to have no carbon emissions, cars, or waste. It will cost $22 billion and take eight years to build. It will be able to hold a population of 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. The city will cover 1,483 acres. Masdar City is being designed by Foster and Partners, a British company.

The city will have a personal electrical power supply mainly from two renewable energy sources — wind turbines and solar panels. Water will be provided through a solar-powered desalination plant and air conditioning will be provided naturally from wind towers.

It is forecast to save more than $2 billion in oil costs over the next 25 years along with creating more than 70,000 jobs.

The immense project will be supported by a company created for it called “Masdar Initiative”, which will develop and commercialize clean energy technologies. It will also be supported by the World Wildlife Fund, a global conservation charity, and it is hoped that international joint ventures will bring in more money.

Both Dongtan and Masdar are currently still undergoing development and we won’t see the results for at least 8 years. So, are we saying that we can only start having green cities many years from now? Is there any chance that we could start today?

A sustainability ranking of 30 major European cities was released in December 2009 in Copenhagen, the Scandinavian city that besides hosting the recent United Nations climate change talks, has been ranked in first place in the new European Green City Index.

The study, sponsored by Siemens and developed by The Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked 30 major cities across Europe relative to one another in eight categories with 30 underlying qualitative and quantitative indicators.

The top cities are, in order — Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Vienna and Amsterdam.

Don’t think that this ranking is of the “Greenest Cities” in Europe, even though it’s called the European Green City Index. Such an assumption is made by many about city sustainability indexes.

Some of our biggest challenges in cutting carbon to reduce global climate change will be in understanding the system dynamics that cities and other complex entities such as corporations, neighborhoods or even our households comprise. We no longer have the luxury of viewing our energy sources, food, water, buildings and land as separate, unrelated systems, even if business, government and academic institutions have been formulated according to this silo-type way of thinking.

Now that we have seen examples and pictures of how a green city can actually be realized, it leave us with a question — “what has your government done to make your city green?”

Come clean

Indah Setiawati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 03/26/2010 5:35 PM | Jakarta

Come clean: Jakarta government employees hang two containers carrying 20 cubic meters of garbage in front of the National Monument in Central Jakarta. The display marked the launch of jakartabersih.com to promote a clean city by Governor Fauzi Bowo on Friday. - JP/Indah Setiawati

Lack of cleanliness hampers tourism

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sun, 03/14/2010 8:58 PM

Tourism expert Joice Lapian says that a lack of cleanliness remains a hurdle in tourism development in North Sulawesi.

“Visitors often complain about the lack of cleanliness in public toilets, such as the ones at the airport,” she said in Manado on Sunday.

“The local government needs to pay attention to this.”

Many public places, especially tourist attractions, are yet to be equipped with bathrooms, kompas.com reported.

“Many potential places don’t have public toilets or bathrooms and as a result, the area has not been developed,” said Joice, a lecturer at Manado’s Sam Ratulangi University.

She said that North Sulawesi had tremendous potential, especially because of its breathtaking natural beauty, but it had been unable to compete with other regions due to its lack of proper facilities.

Best City is still dirty and noisy

Ni Komang Erviani, The Jakarta Post, Ubud | Mon, 02/08/2010 10:51 AM | Bali

The once quiet village of Ubud was just named the Best City in Asia, defeating Singapore, Beijing and Tokyo, but a large number of visitors to the city still find it dirty and noisy.

Jan Hansesen, together with 10 friends from Denmark, was spending a four-day holiday in Ubud, around 40 kilometers north of Denpasar.

Before arriving in Ubud, the group were holidaying in Hong Kong and at the Nusa Dua resort complex in Badung regency, Bali.

“People from all over the world say Ubud is a nice place, so we wanted to visit and enjoy it,” Hansesen said, adding that the group loved staying in Ubud where people were kind and friendly. They also felt secure walking along Ubud’s narrow streets.

However, issues of sanitation and the environment made him deeply concerned.

“Garbage is scattered all over the place. Plastic and wastepaper is everywhere. If you want to have tourists, you must clean the place,”

he said. Hansesen was not alone. Many tourists shared similar feelings. Two Spanish friends, Gabriel Pla and Eduard Bascunan, had come all the way from Spain just to visit the famous Ubud village.

“We wanted to see the most important place in Bali. So I chose the royal temple and Ubud market,” said Gabriel who stayed at a hotel in Nusa Dua. After only a few hours in Ubud, they found the village too crowded and dirty. “I just arrived here and already feel like it’s very crowded,” the Spanish man said. However, the beauty and unique architecture of Ubud’s palaces and temples to some extent healed their bad feelings about the place.

“It’s a nice place. But I think you have to solve the traffic problem. If you were named the best city, you must make improvements here and there,” he said.

US-based travel magazine Condé Nast Traveller once named Ubud the best city in Asia based on readers’ choices. Ubud obtained the highest score (Ubud gained 82.5 compared to Singapore with 79.6 and Shanghai with 75.9).

The nominations were based on a number of indicators including the city’s ambience, art and culture, lodgings, restaurants, local residents’ friendliness and shopping facilities.

Ubud is not a city by any Western terms. It is a small village growing into metropolitan tourist destinations with a sprawling number of restaurants, villas and hotels. The rapid growth of tourist facilities in Ubud was not in line with the progress in infrastructure development.

The roads are winding and narrow fit only for one-way traffic. Parking lots are not available, forcing cars and other vehicles to park along the narrow streets. Roads are filled with holes. Some government-sponsored projects have frequently disrupted the busy traffic. Most of the sidewalks are not designed or constructed properly and this makes it difficult for people to use them. But in particular, Ubud is dirty and noisy.

Tjokorda Oka Artha Ardhana, the patron of Ubud Royalty who is also the regent of Gianyar, responded positively. “We must immediately improve all public facilities in Ubud,” the regent said.

“Our first priority is to regulate traffic flows in Ubud and to provide adequate parking spaces,” he said.

The local authority would also regulate the construction of shopping facilities including advertisement boards as well as the construction of large-scale villas and hotels. “We feel we are living in a big, glittering shopping city, not in an art village,” Ardhana said.

There are around 250 small hotels and 10 luxury hotels and villas in Ubud. “Many are operating without the necessary permits,” he added.

A cleanliness program would be the hardest part of the changes for Ubud administration to tackle. “It is very difficult to build a clean culture. We will never give up, however, to create a clean and safe Ubud.”

City's green spaces not a priority, says planner

Irawaty Wardany, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sat, 02/06/2010 1:02 PM

Increasing Jakarta's green spaces is not a priority for the city administration, which focuses more on transportation and housing, a spatial planning expert says.

Yayat Supriatna, a spatial planner from Trisakti University said recently that providing enough green space would fully depend on commitment from the city administration, as the mission to green the city would be held back by the high price of land.

Green areas have long been an issue in the thriving metropolis of Jakarta, and some observers have said the lack of green spaces makes the city less livable.

The administration also needs to encourage private companies to get involved in greening Jakarta, similar to the recent corporate social responsibility programs (CSR) undertaken in Cakung district, North Jakarta.

The densely populated area of Cakung has geared up to transform its image as a slum area inundated by rain in wet season and dust in the dry season.

On Wednesday, the restoration of some 16 kilometers of the area began as part of a CSR program.

"We have been working on the green area by redesigning and reorganizing the space since November last year," said Handoyo, the communications manager of the developer company PT Mitra Sindo Sukses, adding the company had provided Rp 1 billion (US$106,951) for the CSR program that would cover restoration and maintenance expenses for a year.

Handojo said the company had cooperated with district officials, public order officials and the police on the program.

In 1965, more than 35 percent of Jakarta was made up of green areas, but this has been shrinking ever since. Currently, green areas in Jakarta account for only 9.3 percent of the city's 661,000 square meters of land, far less than the target of 30 percent set by the 2007 Spatial Planning Law.

Jakarta Planning Board head, Nurfakih Wirawan, said it would likely maintain the 13.94 percent target to improve green areas in its 2010-2030 spatial plan, saying the government's target of 30 percent was "unrealistic".

Nurfakih said the modest target was set because the city wanted to make sure the target was achievable.

He mentioned that land acquisition was one of the problems it faced in attempting to create more green spaces in the city.

Bali to host Live Earth concert in April

Avril Holderness-Roddam, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 02/02/2010 6:51 PM | Arts and Entertainment

Bali will host Live Earth: Run for Water 2010 concert in April that will feature local and International artists who will donate their time to raise awareness of the importance of making clean, safe water available to all people.

Participants in the Run for Water event can enrol to run or walk for six kilometers (the approximate distance walked daily by many women and children around the world in order for them to collect water) on the day, April 18.

During the press conferense celebrities and other people involved with the event discussed the importance of providing suitable water to communities and commented that the way to improve the sistaution is through public awareness and public education.

Celebrities present included Slank, DJ. Anton and the present Puteri Indonesia, Qory Sandioriva. You can find out more about Live Earth at the official website: http://liveearth.org/en/. JP/ Avril Holderness-Roddam

When taxpaying communities step in

The Jakarta Post, Evi Mariani, Jakarta | Mon, 12/21/2009 12:42 PM

JP/J. Adiguna

Perhaps inadvertently, Jakarta – like many other cities in the world – has been swept away by the force of the market and neoliberalism, which has consequently transformed the way the city administration works.

In his 1989 paper “From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism” in the journal Geografiska Annaler, Human Geography Professor David Harvey argues that urban governance has “increasingly become preoccupied with the exploration of new ways in which to foster and encourage local development and employment growth”.

Harvey says such a stance is in contrast with the managerial role urban governance used to perform in the decades before the 1980s, which primarily focused on the local provision of services, facilities and benefits for the urban population.

Harvey based his argument on his observation on developed cities in Western Europe and North America in the 1980s. Yet two decades later and a thousand kilometers away, I find his analysis is applicable to contemporary Jakarta, which is increasingly pro-market. One of the consequences of the shift is the deterioration of public services as the administration has been busy ensuring a climate conducive to investment, and developing poor areas by evicting and gentrifying, among others.

One proof of the entrepreneurial Jakarta is the way the administration leases its property assets to the private sector, including for trade centers (such as ITC Mangga Dua), rather than build social housing for the poor or those in the lower-middle income bracket.

In the absence of managerial administration, community-based urban initiatives arise. What I would like to discuss in appreciation here are the kinds of initiatives trying to fill the gap left by the entrepreneurial administration, mostly driven by educated, taxpaying middle-class society.

This year welcomed a new one, Ruang Jakarta or Rujak, which is mostly Internet-based, using the address rujak.org. Initiated by, among others, an architect with a passion for environment and social issues, Marco Kusumawijaya, Rujak wants to create a network of residents of Greater Jakarta who want to do something for a better city. Within its young life, Rujak has drawn its readers’ attention to a broad range of urban issues, from earthquakes to floods, culture to local cuisine, and public space to waste management.

JP/Dina Indra Safitri

In a nutshell, everything that could help Jakarta become a sustainable metropolis. One could find a more visionary stance about Jakarta than one can find in any city agency in the administration. They say evaluate the malls, while the administration says they are open to new mall investments as long as the market allows.

Rujak is an addition to a list of initiatives that while criticizing the administration’s performance, also try to do something positive for Jakarta, a city that many people hate.

Recently, Governor Fauzi Bowo complained about the habit of littering, but as the leader of the city, he said he would not enforce the existing bylaw prohibiting littering, saying that it would be a hard feat as most of the perpetrators are poor people. Besides complaining, he has done nothing more.

But the Group Concerned About Waste, or Gropesh, stepped in years ago. They do campaigns, clean up garbage from public space on their own. And they say Fauzi lacks the political will and is only using poor people as an excuse not to do anything. Many prosperous residents litter too, Gropesh says.

Also in the social environment realm, there is the Jakarta Green Map, which regularly organizes gatherings to map the city. They have produced a map tracing city potentials along the Transjakarta corridors. They also have mapped lakes in Greater Jakarta. Recently, in cooperation with the Bike-to-Work Community (B2W), Green Map traced bicycle routes from Senayan in Central Jakarta to Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta.

Everybody fends for themselves in pro-market Jakarta, the urban poor too, though they are less publicized and most do not have organizations. Researcher AbdouMaliq Simone from London presented his report last year and among his findings in North Jakarta communities was that many of the residents got jobs not from the local administration, but from local gangs.

Simone said this was the result of a dysfunctional administration. He went on that in the long run, such informal authority could not work as it did not make people any better off. While communities like Rujak, Green Map, B2W, Gropesh and many others deserve heartfelt appreciation, I argue that the groups, or at least some of the job descriptions the group has assumed, are also the result of a dysfunctional or in Harvey’s word, entrepreneurial, administration.

For instance, if the administration carries out public services well, then communities like Green Map could focus more on mapping smaller-scale neighborhoods, their own, not mapping the Greater Jakarta lakes, which the administration should have done.

Essential to such entrepreneurial governance is the term public-private-partnership, Harvey says. In Jakarta’s case, oftentimes the administration claims the work of the communities by using this public-private-partnership scheme. It exerts minimum effort — the deployment of few agency officials and a small budget – while claiming a bonus: Increased public participation.

Lately, Jakarta has also seen an appropriation of community work for corporate interests. Green Map Indonesia has published an official statement to the effect that it refuses to join the Green Festival in Jakarta because the festival is sponsored by the Sinar Mas Group, a conglomerate currently in the spotlight for alleged massive logging that deforests Indonesia’s rainforests.

One could expect that the participation of Green Map Jakarta in the festival this year would be their last. It is important for the communities to be aware that the entrepreneurial administration and the market forces it supports so dearly have a great interest in the good and sincere work the communities do. While cooperation is generally good, communities should realize that one side could gain more than the other.

In the interests of these communities, I say strike a stronger bargain or even say no if necessary. My heart, and I’m sure the hearts of many, goes to you.

The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post.

Jakarta Looks To Give Old Town New Life

The Jakarta Globe, Arientha Primanita

Taman Fatahilah, Jakarta (Photo's: Yulian Firdaus)

The city administration is planning to give you more reasons to visit Old Town, or Kota Tua, in West Jakarta next year.

Aurora Tambunan, the deputy governor for cultural and tourism affairs, told the Jakarta Globe this week that the city was designing a “Weekend at Kota Tua” program to increase visits in 2010.

“We want to make it a weekly event for the whole year,” she said, adding that the events would showcase music, food and art. “It would be conceivable to put a performance of a jazz group in Fatahillah Hall.”

The proposed weekly events are part of the city’s revitalization plan for Kota Tua, a colonial Dutch neighborhood that is crumbling after decades of neglect.

This year, the administration allocated Rp 20 billion ($2.1 million) from its annual budget to revitalize Kotu Tua and established the Heritage Building Revitalization Team with the State Enterprises Ministry. The plan involves dividing the neighborhood into five zones, such as a colonial zone and a Chinatown area, Aurora said.

The ministry owns 23 of the 284 historic buildings in the 800-hectare area. Six other structures are owned by the city administration with the rest privately owned. “The city’s goal is to make Old Town a cultural tourism destination, preserve the heritage buildings and increase the income generated in the area,” Aurora said.

The ministry and the city are still discussing whether to lease, buy or jointly manage 12 of the 23 ministry-owned buildings located in the central area around Fatahillah Square. The administration is confident the agreement will be finalized early next year, paving the way for the revitalization plan, Aurora said.

Kota Tua observers, however, believe the neighborhood must resolve basic infrastructure problems before implementing any restoration plans.

Ella and Asep Kambali, founder of Komunitas Historia Indonesia (Indonesian History Community), said difficulties with garbage collection, transportation and street vendors needed to be addressed first.

“The city must think of a plan to keep the area clean,” Asep said. “Right now waste bins are rare and there are no bathrooms. People have to go to the museum to use the toilet.” Parking and public transportation also need to be addressed, Asep added.

Any plan to revitalize the area, Asep said, must be coordinated with other city agencies so that basic infrastructure issues can be dealt with.

Batavia cafe (Photo's: Yulian Firdaus)

Related Article:

Historic, cultural buildings at risk of destruction

Key river suffers upstream, downstream pollution

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 12/11/2009 11:16 AM

Up a creek without a paddle: A survey team motors through the Citarum River estuary in Muara Gembong district, Bekasi. Despite frequent tidal floods, the river bank is home to many people who come from around the country to earn a living as fishermen. The Citarum River has often been called the world’s dirtiest river. Courtesy of Cita-Citarum/Diella Dachlan

Despite the country’s ambitious plans to provide sustainable access to clean water for 80 percent of the urban population by 2015, its capital is still struggling to fix an enduring problem facing one of its key rivers.

The target, set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), starkly contrasts with the fact that the Citarum River, one of the most vital sources of drinking water for Jakarta, is often referred to as the world’s dirtiest river.

Saiful, the new chairman of the Association of Indonesian Tap Water Companies (Perpamsi), said last Thursday in Batam only 40 percent of the urban population and less than 30 percent of the rural population had sustainable access to clean water.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) stated the Citarum River Basin Territory supported a population of 28 million people, produced 20 percent of Indonesia’s gross domestic product and provided 80 percent of the surface water supply to the capital.

Director of the National Development Planning Agency’s directorate of water resources and irrigation, M. Donny Azdan, said the river, which flows 300 km from Mount Gunung Wayang in West Java to the Pantai Bahagia coast in Bekasi, faces a multitude of problems, which the country is trying to tackle.

“The problem upstream is erosion due to agriculture, which dumps a lot of soil into the river. [Further downstream] there’s also the contamination by farm, domestic and industrial waste that is dumped into the river,” he said.

The Majalaya area in West Java, for example, is home to many textile industries that pollute the river, he said during a river expedition Saturday.

The two-day expedition was set up by the Association of Jungle Explorers and Mountain Climbers (Wanadri).

The Citarum was once a familiar training and exploration area for the association, which conducted its first expedition there in 1985, Abrar Prasodjo, the head of the expedition, said.

“The river is necessary for our purposes. We wanted to conduct a training session in Saguling [West Java] but the water was foamy,” he recalled.

Abrar said the expedition was expected to provide new information that would be relayed to the authorities and the community who would take the necessary steps to improve the state of the river, thus allowing the association’s members and the residents to benefit from Citarum’s water.

One man’s garbage: A man wades in the Citarum River in the Majalaya area, West Java next to a garbage pile on the riverbank. The water is heavily contaminated by untreated waste from textile plants. Courtesy of Cita-Citarum/Steve Griffiths

The heavy pollution of the river is also evident in its estuary in Muara Gembong, Bekasi.

An area in Muara Gembong, ironically named Pantai Bahagia (Happy Beach), constantly suffers from tidal and other floods. The coastline, once thick with mangroves, is now the site of a fishing village where wooden boats have to navigate through a layer of rubbish.

“Its as if the ground sinks lower by 10 centimeters each year,” Erik, a resident, said of the increasingly serious floods.

Carsim, another resident who was in an elevated sitting space to avoid coming in contact with the dirty water, said around 20 years ago, the area had not been as crowded as it was now and the mangrove forest dominated the landscape.

Abrar said the constant destruction of the mangrove forest also endangered the area’s ecosystem.

“There used to be a lot of birds and monkeys here, but now the mangrove is very thin,” he said as the expedition team navigated the river.

Donny said the road to restore, or at least improve, the Citarum River was a long and rocky one.

“We calculate there are around 80 separate actions that need to be taken, which will take around 15 to 20 years to do. The cost would be around Rp 35 trillion, [US$3.7 billion]” he said.

Given this estimate and the fact that the country has over 5,000 rivers with eleven of them critically polluted, would fulfilling the MDG for clean water be realistic?

“No,” he said, laughing. “We’re having problems with just one river!” (dis)

Environmental damage in S Kalimantan alarming : minister

Antara News, Saturday, November 28, 2009 00:59 WIB | Environment

Banjarmasin (ANTARA News) - Environmental damage in South Kalimatan has reached an alarming level, Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said here on Friday.

He said South Kalimantan, known as the "province of one thousand rivers", would some day be hit by big floods if the serious environmental problem was not addressed properly.

"Uncontrolled deforestation, air pollution, and water pollution over the past 15 years are major problems in the province," the environment minister said.

The minister said fires and illegal logging activities in the 2003-2007 period alone had destroyed more than 1.7 million hectares of forest in the province.

He said the extensive forest damage in the province had diminished the water flows in river basins and therefore floods and landslides frequently happened.

In 2007 alone floods hit the province 32 times and in 2008 and 2009 the number continued to increase because of silting up of rivers and illegal logging activities.

Such a condition, according to environment minister, was worsened by the malfunctioning of rivers as a result of domestic and industrial activities.

To overcome the problems, the local government would launch clean-water and blue-sky programs, in addition to the construction of waste water management systems, and rehabilitation of degraded forests.

Jakartans told to stop littering city rivers

Triwik Kurniasari, THE JAKARTA POST, JAKARTA | Tue, 03/31/2009 11:11 AM

Changing people’s mind-set about living healthy and keeping the environment clean is the main key to encouraging people to handle waste management issues, a discussion concluded on Monday.

Sanitation remains a major problem in the capital, with many Jakartans still disposing of human waste into rivers, and even using the rivers over lavatories when nature calls.

National Development and Planning Agency (Bappenas) wastewater unit head Nugroho Tri Utomo said many people did not heed the importance of defecating in lavatories.

“We can see many slum dwellers living along riverbanks, like the Ciliwung, choosing to defecate in the river for practical reasons,” he said.

“Besides, many people who have lavatories at home still build waste pipes from their toilets to nearby rivers. It’s just the same as defecating in the river.”

Most people, he added, were unaware that human waste could pollute river water and cause various diseases, like diarrhea and typhoid.

“But it’s not easy to kick off the habit, since disposing of human waste into rivers has been some kind of culture,” Nugroho said during a discussion about sanitation at Trisakti University.

Ariani Dwi Astuti, head of Trisakti’s School of Environmental Engineering, agreed.

She said it was necessary to create specific toilet designs for people with different backgrounds.

“It’s important to adapt the technology for the local community. We can create a dry toilet for people in East Nusa Tenggara, for instance, since the people usually defecate in dry open air,” Ariani said.

She added the media played a big role in raising awareness about the important of using proper lavatories.

“It’s not easy raising public awareness about using lavatories instead of rivers to defecate in,” she said.

“Putting up ads on local TV is a good and effective way of educating people. The city administration can also take part by giving sanitation education in schools.”

The government, through Vice President Jusuf Kalla, is targeting to rid Indonesia of the habit of defecating in open areas by 2014, in a bid to increase public health quality.

Naning Adisowo, chairwoman of the Indonesian Toilet Association (ATI), urged the city administration to procure more public toilets.

“If the administration provides appropriate toilets in public places, it will prevent people from urinating on bushes or trees,” she said.

Ciliwung riverbank residents to start ‘cash for trash’ project

The Jakarta Post, JAKARTA | Mon, 03/23/2009 11:37 AM

Squatters living along Ciliwung’s riverbank will get around Rp 900 (less than 10 US cents) once every three months for all the organic trash they collect.

“This will be the first time we will pay residents for their trash,” said NGO activist Lestari recently.

Since last year residents have been separating their organic and nonorganic trash voluntarily following encouragement from the Ciliwung Merdeka foundation.

Starting from the second week of April, residents in four neighborhood units (RT) in Bukit Duri subdistrict of South Jakarta and one in Kampung Pulo of East Jakarta will be paid Rp 10 for every kilogram of organic waste.

The garbage will be sent to collecting points that will be made available in five neighborhoods in the area, said Lestari, who is the foundation coordinator.

“We are targeting cooperation with two other RTs in Kampung Pulo by June this year,” she said.

The program is a joint venture between Ciliwung Merdeka, a nonprofit organization focusing on environmental and socio-cultural issues, and Ciliwung Hijau foundation, which was founded by residents in the five RTs.

“We want to motivate people in the area to boost their participation in the program,” Lestari said.

The collected waste will become additional raw material for compost production at the Compost House (Rumah Kompos), a compost-producing facility built by Ciliwung Merdeka foundation in 2008.

With additional material, Lestari said, Compost House will be able to mass produce the compost.

“Then we will be able to sell compost in large amounts to earn more money,” she said.

“The profit from the sales will be returned to residents in the form of a raise in the price of the trash to Rp 25 and then to Rp 50.”

Residents gave mixed reactions.

Housewives in RT 5 in Bukit Duri subdistrict were eager to take part in the program, according to Lestari.

“They said it was good that the trash had some value,” she said.

However, Karsinah from RT 7 in Bukit Duri regency was not too enthusiastic. “If they price the trash higher, say like at Rp 100 per kilogram, then I will [do it],” she said.

Lestari acknowledged that one of the challenges was to raise settlers’ awareness about the importance of trash management.

According to RT 7 Chairman Husen Gunawan, residents in his area have different opinions on the trash problem.

“There are those who are concerned about the trash problem, and those who aren’t, who say ‘I have paid Rp 3,000 (25 US cents) a month to the RT, if no one takes care of my trash, I’ll just throw it into the river’,” Husen said. (adh)