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?"