Clean water: What goes around comes around

Lukas Adhaykso ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 04/07/2008 11:16 AM  |  Opinion

In Jakarta, competition to get water is very tight. People are forced to dig deeper into the ground, investing expensively for deep well construction, to get to cleaner groundwater.

This is ironic. If we look around, everyone can see Jakarta actually is not short of water. There are 13 rivers large and small running across the capital of Indonesia. However, the water is heavily polluted.

Riverbanks that provide some sort of buffering to the streams have turned into slums overpopulated by the city's poor. With very little capital and almost no clean water and sanitation facilities they are forced to tolerate the appalling conditions.

Raw sewage is seeping into the ground, contaminating the groundwater. The spillover is flowing into foul gutters channeling it directly into nearby rivers. And yet they often use the very same rivers to wash and clean themselves, saving the relatively cleaner but far from hygienic well water that they often buy off from local venders for drinking and cooking.

With no local waste collection facility the riverbank population is left with no choice but to drop their waste into the rivers. This is why overlooking a bridge we are often confronted by a filthy view of stagnant, dark brown to blackish water with rotting debris floating about.

The deep concerns over water scarcity do not exclude those who can afford premium-price mineral waters. Market principle applies. How much more are you prepared to pay for your glass of water as supplies decline and demands escalate?

The story above is only giving you the picture on the surface. But in fact, the city has fundamental problems. Jakarta has no advanced sewage management facilities like many other metropolitan areas. While over 6,000 tons of solid waste is transported away from the city every day, the accumulated sewage of Jakarta's population of some 10 million almost never entirely leaves the ground.

Individual septic tanks constructed from cement and bricks commonly found in residential areas are far from sanitary as leakage tends to occur. For those who can afford it, watertight, plastic septic tanks with bacterial digesters provide a solution.

In poor settlements where tiny houses are tightly packed together a communal septic tank provides a way out as the cost of construction and maintenance can be distributed among the households. These are the practical things that could be done immediately before municipal sewage facilities are in palace. Of course, this will work better if there are appropriate policies and incentives.

A key stakeholder in this is the industrial sector. Its active involvement in waste management is vital for cleaning up Jakarta's water pollution problem. Comprehensive policies on environmental impact assessment, pollution control and water quality standards are already in place.

However, these must be coupled with strong enforcement, strict penalties and incentives. It must be applied across the board, as industrial pollution control is not just about the big industries but it is the sum of all the players large and small.

Of the aforementioned measures, incentives require special attention. For sometimes, the so-called "Cleaner Industrial Production Program", otherwise known as PROPER, has been introduced by the government to evaluate and rate the performance of industries.

This program must be institutionalized further alongside established systems such the National Standards of Indonesia (SNI) and its international counterparts like the ISO standards to specifically recognize good waste management practices.

On the side of the industries, the above should no longer be viewed as a burdening obligation. Instead of clinging to the old-fashioned view that waste processing is an extra cost, companies need to start regarding waste processing as an integral part of their operations.

Without responsible steps in managing their waste, companies will run the risks of facing public rallies and legal charges from the impacted stakeholders, which could undermine the consumers' trust and in the worst case lead to loss of license to operate.

The sustainability of a business will be uncertain without sound waste management. For listed companies, the demand for having sound waste management is particularly strong since their stakeholders, particularly the stock market analysts and government agencies, will closely monitor their waste management policy and execution. Failing to comply with the waste management requirement will elevate their risks from the perspective of investors.

The writer is a program officer for the environment with the United Nations Development Programme in Jakarta. The opinions expressed here are his personal view. He can be reached at lukas.adhyakso@undp.org.

Copyright © 2008 The Jakarta Post - PT Bina Media Tenggara. All Rights Reserved.