Coca Cola goes green

SURABAYA: The local bottling company for Coca Cola has inaugurated its new Rp 1 billion ($476,000) waste water treatment plant in compliance with the East Java environmental regulations.

The new plant ensures that waste water discharged by the Tirtalina bottling plant is so clean that fish can live in it, PT Coca Cola Indonesia announced.

Just to prove its point, a landscaped fish pond has been built as a final test for the treated water. The inhabitants not only survived, they also grow, the statement said.

East Java Governor Basofi Sudirman witnessed the opening yesterday.

The new facility has stabilized the plant's effluent. Its biological oxygen demand has been reduced to 50 ppm from 600 and its chemical oxygen demand to 100 ppm from 1,000. These levels are lower than the maximum prescribed by the 1987 governor's decree. (emb)