City needs more wastewater treatment plants

City needs more wastewater treatment plants

JAKARTA (JP): The city needs more household wastewater
treatment centers to cope with the waste of its almost 10 million
people, a city official said yesterday.

The city's household wastewater agency's director, Anggraini
Dewi, said the city could only process one percent, or 221,000
cubic meters, of the 1.8 million cubic meters of wastewater a
day.

The agency has two wastewater treatment centers and two
pumping stations in Setiabudi, Central Jakarta. It planned to set
up two more centers at a cost of at least Rp 9 trillion (US$3.7
billion) in Tomang, West Jakarta and Kebon Melati, Central
Jakarta, she said.

"It is high time we added more waste centers because the
increasing volume of waste is harmful to the public health," she
told a panel discussion at the state minister of environment's
office.

She said household wastewater was more hazardous to public
health than human feces. Household wastewater, especially gray
water or water polluted with detergents, contained a high level
of pollutants, she said.

Wastewater specialist and director of PT Arias Bina Sanita
Water, Alizar Anwar, said bacteria, chlorite, sulfates and
nitrite chemical compounds were some of the dangerous substances
found in household wastewater.

He said the city had a poor wastewater treatment record
because it did not have a good sewerage system.

With the already-crowded underground water and electricity
networks, it was not feasible to build an extensive sewerage
network, he said.

The city relies on other bodies such as the city clean service
and the city public works agency to deal with human waste and
public bathrooms and toilets. (03)