The first-ever environmental assessment carried out into hotels found that the quality of wastewater from the four and five-star resorts was well below minimum standards set by the government.

The ministry said some of the surveyed hotels had not even secured licenses from the government allowing them to dispose of polluted water.

The ministry declined to name the hotels, saying the survey was still on a voluntary basis.

"We plan to rank all star-rated hotels in the country by next year based on their compliance with wastewater management measures. We will announce the result to the public," the ministry's deputy assistant for pollution management from the manufacturing sector, Mohammad Helmy, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

He said the ranking system also aimed to support plans by the culture and tourism ministry to award hotels with "green globe" certificates for their environmental management efforts.

The 1995 ministerial decree on wastewater requires all hotels across the country to treat effluent.

Hotels are required to set up equipment to measure the daily volumes of wastewater and report levels at least quarterly to the local administrations.

Helmy said hotels needed to recycle their waste water so it could be used for watering gardens and in other ways to minimize the usage of clean water.

Currently, most hotels use ground water for their daily operations due to a lack of supply from regional water companies.

The ministry says the overuse of ground water will lead to water shortages in Java, Bali and Sulawesi by 2025. -- JP/Adianto P. Simamora

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