Waterways choked with garbage in Timika
Markus Makur, The Jakarta Post, Timika | Thu, 08/12/2010 9:19 AM
Waste management is still a serious issue in Mimika regency capital Timika in Papua.
The administration, in an attempt to clean up the city, has provided dump trucks in a number of locations to provide places for people to dump their trash properly.
The efforts have so far seen little improvement.
“Residents instead dump their waste in the city’s drainage network, choking the rivers with junk,” head of the regency’s spatial planning, sanitation and cemetery agency, Nicky Kuahaty, told The Jakarta Post.
“When it rains in Timika, the river no longer flows well. The waterway is obstructed by all the garbage.”
He said his office would continue working together with the city’s residents to make the city spotless.
Geographically, he said Timika is situated on flat ground, making it prone to flooding. Floods have been worsened by the city’s inferior drainage system, he added.
He also cited the city’s high population growth rate of 14 percent as a reason for the city’s waste management problem.
Kuahaty said residents in Timika, both newcomers and natives, did not care much about preserving environment.
For example, he said, residents have done nothing about the drains being choked with rubbish.
Many residents, he added, have built their homes along the river, without realizing its impact on the environment.
“Residents always complain whenever there is a flood. Unfortunately, they fail to understand that, when they dump waste into the river it worsens the flood’s impacts.”
Ahead of the upcoming Independence Day celebration on Aug. 17, he said his office would organize a clean river program.
The program, he said, would involve thousands of Timika residents.
The residents would work cleaning the river and its surrounding areas as well as the city’s trash-clogged drains, especially those in residential areas, he added.
“We will also start dismantling structures along the river since many of them were built without permits and residents there throw their garbage into the river, blocking it,” Kuahaty said.
