35,663 families without bathrooms

TANGERANG: The Tangerang municipal resettlement and regional infrastructure agency disclosed on Tuesday that 35,663 families living in 20 slums across the municipality relieve themselves on open land as they do not have bathrooms.

"The residents' habit of going to the toilet on open land is having a bad environmental impact," the agency's technical planning chief Suwardjono told reporters.

He said a recent survey conducted by the agency showed that besides having low awareness of sanitation, most of the families could not afford to build their own bathrooms.

More than half of the poor families need to learn how to use a toilet. "Changing their habits to use a toilet is a process," he added. --JP