I

t was 3 p.m. when Uyus Setiabhakti and Mas'€™ud Ibnu Syamsuri cruised the Cisadane River in Tangerang in their blue motorboat to do their chosen job '€” picking trash out of the murky water '€” and enjoy the view of the river.

Uyus asked his companion steering the boat on the '€œCisadane Ranger Patrol'€ to slow down when he spotted two men digging at the back of a factory located less than 5 meters from the riverbank.

'€œPull over, I think we might be on to something. Let me check first,'€ Uyus said. He then alighted from the boat while Mas'€™ud turned off the engine.

'€œGood afternoon sir, do you mind telling me what you two are doing?'€ he asked the two middle-aged men standing next to two pipes and a fresh mound of soil.

The two told him they were fixing the factory'€™s waste disposal pipes, emphasizing that the factory had a waste disposal permit.

'€œAnother permit allowing a company to dump hazardous waste into the Cisadane. Why the city is still issuing them is beyond me,'€ Uyus told The Jakarta Post as he returned to the boat. He said he had obtained the name of the company and may check that it had a permit to dispose of liquid waste into the river.

The Cisadane, which winds through several districts in the regency and municipality of Tangerang, has become severely polluted with industrial waste because of poor law enforcement by both the regency and city administrations.

In 2013, the Tangerang Environmental Management Board (BLHD) reported that 84 percent of the waste in the Cisadane came from households, restaurants and hotels while factories contributed 14 percent to the water pollution.

The Cisadane provides raw water to private water operator PT PAM Lyonnaise Jaya (Palyja), which is responsible for supplying clean water to the western part of Jakarta and draws 31.8 percent of its supplies from the river.

'€œThe river gives us so much, but look at what we do to return the favor. We throw garbage and waste in it,'€ Uyus said. '€œI think it'€™s about time people started treating it better.'€

The majority of houses in Tangerang municipality and regency and in South Tangerang municipality are not connected to any wastewater treatment plant, even the ones developed by property giants.

The developer of BSD City, for example, has not built a waste treatment plant. Property developer Lippo Group is among the very few to build wastewater treatment plants.

The executive director of the Banten Environment Care Foundation has been practicing the Cisadane waste bank system Banksasuci that he established with Mas'€™ud and five other people in 2014. Its premises are located just 15 meters from the riverbank.

The community sells fish and recycled trash that they catch in the river to fund their river preservation activities, which according to Mas'€™ud was proof that even a small community could make waste into goods that had economic value.

He said the community also held events to increase local people'€™s awareness about the effects of throwing household waste into the river. '€œBut it is a tough job. They claim it is a practice dating back to their grandfathers'€™ days,'€ Mas'€™ud said.

Recently, the community held a painting and arts exhibition on the riverbank and a trash collection contest to attract more people and to give them stronger sense of the importance of looking after the river, in which they could appreciate each other and not merely see a connection between people and trash disposal.

'€œOur dream is to see the Cisadane in a better condition; a clean and well-maintained river,'€ Uyus said.