Cleaning up Jakarta's air
Cleaning up Jakarta's air
Jakarta's clean air campaigners seem to be making some headway
in their long, uphill fight against pollution. At long last, the
city fathers have begun to show some unmistakable signs of
discomfort at having the nation's capital rated the third-most
polluted city in the world, after Mexico City and Bangkok. Now,
steps are in the planning to cut the city's air pollution rate,
although, it must be admitted, not everyone will be happy.
After an initial almost year-long trial and education period,
smoking in public places will be prohibited as of next year. Lest
they lose some of their tobacco-puffing clientele, however,
hotels, malls, cafes and restaurants will still be allowed to
tolerate smokers, as long as they do their puffing in restricted
smoking areas.
But while all this will no doubt please Jakarta's growing
numbers of non-smokers, the main target of the anti-pollution
drive will be the roads, or rather what moves on them: the 1.5
million cars -- not to mention the choking black smoke billowing
from thousands of city buses -- and the blue fog from the 3
million motorbikes that not only throw Jakarta's traffic into a
state of disorder every day of the year, but also contribute to
some 80 percent of the city's air pollution.
Now, public demands are being voiced for City Hall to require
public transportation operators to use compressed natural gas
(CNG) instead of gasoline for the fleets -- those vehicles,
presumably, that pass the emission tests that will be mandatory
for all motor vehicles on the city roads as of next year. Gas, it
is presumed, gives off less pollution and could in the final
instance be cheaper than gasoline.
The idea of switching from gasoline to CNG as fuel for cars
has been around for several decades. The recent hike in the
prices of fossil fuels has only served to infuse new life into an
old proposition. In principle, of course, such a switch is to be
commended, especially since Indonesia has large reserves of
natural gas.
The catch is that replacing a gasoline engine with a new CNG
run-device is not as easy and involves a lot of work. Obviously,
gasoline tanks will have to be taken out and replaced by high
pressure cylinders, and cars will need converter kits, which can
cost anywhere from Rp 7 million to 9 million for vans and sedans,
and Rp 20 million for larger vehicles, such as trucks and buses,
a price that depends mainly on their cylinder volume.
Once these are installed, the new equipment needs routine
maintenance by specially trained technicians at specialist
workshops.
However, right now in all of Jakarta, only one properly
functioning CNG workshop currently exists.
Obviously, these costs are beyond the means of the vast
majority of Jakartans who are also unlikely to want to change
over their vehicles if it involves long delays or hassles. So,
laudable as the idea may be, it is apparent that other
alternatives may have to be found to stimulate the awareness of
Jakartans of the advantages and importance to living in a clean
and healthy environment. For now, it would seem that the most
effective way of ensuring a successful cleaning up of the city's
air is by urging Jakartans to comply, fully and unconditionally,
with the emission testing requirements.
Understandably, many people stand to be inconvenienced by the
city's new clean-air regulations, even though an earlier proposal
to limit the age of cars -- to 10 years for private vehicles and
15 years for buses and larger vehicles -- has been scrapped in
recognition of the fact that not all Jakartans can afford to
trade in their old cars for newer ones. However, inescapably,
some inconvenience seems to be the price that Jakartans will have
to pay to keep the air they breathe at least tolerably clean.
Jakarta simply cannot go on accommodating a 7 percent annual
growth in the number of motor vehicles on its roads -- not, that
is, unless they are willing to see the city strangled and
suffocated in an unending tangle of cars and motorbikes by 2010,
as has been projected. Something, indeed, must be done. To be
effective, however, any measure taken must factor in the
realities in which the capital's citizenry lives and works.