Bengawan Solo badly polluted

Bengawan Solo badly polluted

SEMARANG: Industrial waste dumped into Bengawan Solo river is
posing health problem for the hundreds of thousands of people who
use the river water for daily purposes in Central and East Java.

Chief of the Central Java provincial government's
environmental bureau Mulyanto said yesterday that scores of
factories dump their waste into the river without proper
treatment.

"Hundreds of thousands of people use the river water for their
daily needs such as irrigation and drinking. They are directly
affected by the contamination," he said in a workshop.

According to Maryanto, only 44 factories along the river have
waste water treatment facilities and only a few use them
properly," he said.

Most other factories have yet to build waste water treatment
plants. They consider the facilities just too expensive, he
added. (har)