BSP vows to improve waste management

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

PT Bakrie Sumatra Plantations (BSP) says it has been improving the waste treatment facilities at its plants in efforts to be taken off the government's annual blacklist of the most polluting companies in the country.

"We recently purchased another ammonia decomposer and an aerator, both of which are expected further reduce the hazard of the waste from our plants," BSP quality control manager Efdi Ruzaly said last week.

"Our target is that we will have improved our waste treatment by the end of this year."

BSP, which produces palm oil and rubber, has several extraction and processing plants in its plantations in North Sumatra and Lampung.

Despite having seven waste treatment ponds occupying an area of 9.2 hectares, the state ministry for the environment last year put BSP's rubber plant in Bunut, North Sumatra, on its notorious polluters list.

Companies blacklisted for two consecutive years risk fines and court action by the state if they do not clean up their act.

President director Ambono Janurianto said BSP should not have been put on the blacklist and questioned the validity of the ministry's audit.

"We should not have been blacklisted because our company has actually been particularly concerned with the environment." BSP had received the ISO 14000 international accreditation for environmental-friendly processing in 1996, he said.

Ambono said an independent environmental audit from surveyor PT Sucofindo in July 2005 showed that the ammonia and nitrogen levels in the waste from BSP's plants were still below the maximum levels allowed.