German NGOs lead sanitation in Java

German NGOs lead sanitation in Java

Christina Schott, Contributor, Yogyakarta

Earlier the water of the river here was colored -- a kind of
dirty brownish. Now it looks like water again.

From the top of the Serangan bridge, the village situated
right beside the Winongo river looks quite idyllic: Fish traps
are rowed up along the river as children are playing at the river
side, which is bathed in palms and other greenery.

As one ventures into the labyrinth of small huts and houses,
though, the sheer number and density of human beings living very
close to each other becomes evident. And until the beginning of
this year one could also smell it, since all the waste mankind
produces inevitably ends up being dumped into the river through
an open canal system -- as is the case in many settlements in the
country.

The same river water is also used for bathing, as a community
toilet and cooking area, often at the same time.

But the smell at Ngampilan has gone. The bathrooms and
kitchens of the kampung are now all connected with subterranean
pipes to a wastewater system under some manholes on the paved
street, that were built with the help of the German non-profit
organizations BORDA (Bremen Overseas Research and Development
Association) and GTZ (Association for Technical Cooperation) and
the DEWATS (Decentralized Wastewater Treatment System) project in
Yogyakarta.

The coarsest dirt is separated in three sedimentation
chambers, connected to an anaerobic reactor that intensifies the
contact between the bacteria and the sewage in a digestion
process throughout several chambers. The concentration of the
diarrhea-causing E-Coli bacteria, for example, can be reduced up
to 99 percent by this treatment.

Before there were just a few toilets, shared by many people.
The smell was terrible, especially in the mornings and close to
the junction of the canals close to our rubbish container at the
river side, said Purnomo, one of the senior figures in the
village.

Now most of the houses have their own bathrooms. And without
the smell one feels automatically healthier.

The wastewater filtration system at Ngampilan is only one of
the more than 75 projects that BORDA has already realized in the
country during the last fifteen years -- in cooperation with the
local non-governmental organizations BEST (Bina Ekonomi Sosial
Terpadu), LPTP (Lembaga Pengembangan Teknologi Pedesaan) and Bali
Fokus.

Their aim is to improve the quality of water by building
wastewater treating filters and sanitary facilities.

The sanitary problems caused by bad or non-existent sewage
systems are the reason for illnesses such as diarrhea and typhus,
especially for children: With around 900,000 cases of typhus per
year, Indonesia has the highest rate in all of Asia.

The economic damage for Indonesia caused by inadequate sewage
treatment is estimated to be a whopping Rp 47 trillion
(approximately US$5 billion) per year.

The DEWATS project is able to fill the gaps between
sophisticated expensive treatment technologies and primitive
absorption habits that seriously endanger groundwater quality and
public health. This solution fits very well for many sectors in
Indonesia -- not only for the human settlements, but also for
small- and medium-sized businesses, said Andreas Ulrich, the
representative of BORDA in Indonesia.

In addition to the many densely populated settlements --
hospitals, hotels, small businesses, slaughterhouses and cattle
farms are the target of DEWATS projects.

Interestingly, especially for the agro-industries, is the
wastewater system side effects of producing biogas: Tofu making
or cattle farms can use the huge biogas output again for cooking
and heating.

Impressively demonstrated at the BORDA office in Yogyakarta:
While the water of the last filters at the house-owned sewage
system is watering a beautiful tropical garden, the self-produced
biogas is used for the office kitchen.

The installation costs of a DEWATS project are amazingly low,
since the important parts work all without technical energy and
most of the materials are locally available. Operation and
maintenance can be done by locals after having been trained by an
expert.

We can only reduce the costs, if the people themselves
contribute to the project, Andreas Ulrich said. This is only
possible if they understand the urgency of the problem. For this,
there is a kind of self-selection for our projects.

What occurrs if the motivation is not high enough, can be seen
at the Klaten Islamic Hospital: Although the wastewater system
works very well, its effect is almost zero, since the polluted
mud in the filter is carried to the next river and dumped there
with all its hazardous waste and bacteria -- instead of being
processed at a special plant, or at least partly processed
into natural fertilizer.

The people and the government have to cooperate with each
other if our wastewater problem is to work well, said Peter Yan,
consultant for the Ngampilan project. What is the use, if we get
the best results right here, but just a hundred meters up river
they still dump all their waste into the water?

Nevertheless, the positive example of the DEWATS project at
the Ngampilan settlement has been successful: The important
parameter, the Chemical Oxygen Demand, previously was at the
level of 160 mg/l, but is now at 55 mg/l (standard: 80 mg/l), the
Biological Oxygen Demand sunk from 91 to 39 mg/l.

"Maybe I still wouldn't recommend drinking our water," Purnomo
retorted, "but who knows in the future?"