D

espite the depletion of the ozone layer, many city residents are showing little concern for this global environmental issue.

One resident in West Jakarta, Putri, often leaves her air conditioner running when she goes out.

“I don’t think the world will end just because I forget to turn off my air conditioner,” the 19-year-old college student told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday, but denied that she did not care about the environment.

Most air conditioners in the city use chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs) gas, imports of which have been banned by the government since 2007, but which can still be found on the black market. CFCs are still widely used in Indonesia both as a refrigerant (in air conditioners and refrigerators) and as a propellant in (aerosol sprays).

CFCs are recognized as an ozone-depleting substance. Power inefficiency also contributes significantly to ozone depletion.

In June, the State Environment Report revealed that the concentration of ozone in Indonesia’s upper atmosphere was between 230 and 270 Dobson units. A normal range is between 300 and 500 Dobson units

Without proper management to prevent the ozone layer from getting thinner, the UNEP estimates that by 2050, up to 20 million people globally will suffer from skin cancer and 130 million will suffer from cataracts.

Considering the importance of ozone, the UN in 1987 declared Sept. 16 the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.

However, many people like Putri and Andi, an accounting staffer at a company in Central Jakarta, do not see this as a big issue.

Andi, 36, who said he could not work without air conditioners, said “scientists and other environmentalists can prevent the negative effects of global warming. I’m just an office worker.”

While global warming and ozone depletion are separate issues, they are linked. Enhanced global warming is a probable consequence of increasing amounts of greenhouse gases, which include CFCs.

Andi also said he knew that there were many green products, such as perfumes that did not use CFCs as aerosol propellants on the market, but said he did not really care about such things.

“I will buy a product as long as it is good quality and reasonably priced, even though it may not be a green product,” he told the Post.

WWF Indonesia climate policy coordinator Ari Muhammad said it was hard to improve public awareness of ozone depletion since they had not experienced the direct devastating impacts.

“For example, some people know that throwing garbage into rivers causes floods but they keep doing it because they probably do not live in an area that is hit by floods,” Ari said.

“The city administration has concepts to reduce ozone depletion but has created policies without considering the environmental impacts,” he said, referring to the fact that the administration continued to issue permits for inefficient buildings that relied on air conditioning, and reduced green areas needed to absorb water and pollution.

Separately, the chairman of the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), Ubaidillah said the administration should make the most of the ozone layer preservation day to improve its efforts in dealing with this issue.

Ubaidillah said officials should apply environmentally friendly principles in their lives so that people could learn from them.

“We can’t expect people to apply such principles when elite officials are not setting an example,” he said.

“Besides the administration, the private sector must continue making innovations to produce greener products,” he said.

Ubaidillah added that if all products available in the market followed environmentally friendly principles, people would have no other choice but to use them.

“Several companies have produced green products, but they need to nurture their customers about the importance of such products.”

PT Unilever Indonesia corporate communications chief Maria D. Dwianto said her company was aware of environmental issues and had applied environmentally friendly principles for several years.

“We use certain chemicals that cause minimal damage to the environment. For example, one of our detergent products uses LAS, a chemical substance that biodegrades easily, as a basic ingredient,” she said. (rch)