Hazardous waste a threat in RI's major cities: WB expert

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Hazardous industrial waste is becoming an increasing threat to the country's biggest cities, including Jakarta, Semarang in Central Java, and Surabaya in East Java, according to an expert.

Hazardous waste, by itself or after coming into contact with other waste, has characteristics such as chemical reactivity, toxicity, corrosiveness or a tendency to explode, posing a threat to human health and the environment.

Thomas E. Walton, head of the World Bank team that drafted The Indonesia Environment Monitor 2003 report, said here over the weekend that the possibility of bodies of water becoming contaminated with toxic and inorganic waste was increasingly becoming a concern in regions with high concentrations of home industries and large textile dyeing industries.

"Anecdotal evidence suggests that significant quantities of toxic and hazardous waste are being disposed in uncontrolled landfills and dumped in rivers with other industrial waste," says the report, which was jointly unveiled on Saturday by the Office of the State Minister for the Environment and the World Bank.

Jakarta, Semarang and Surabaya are home to a wide range of home industries and large textile dyeing industries, almost all of them without proper waste disposal methods.

"Factories in major cities usually dispose their hazardous waste in their industry compound dumping site or local dumping site. But the dumping site is not appropriate and uncontrolled," Walton told The Jakarta Post.

It was conservatively estimated that Indonesia produced more than one million tons of hazardous waste in 2000.

The report, which calls for concerted efforts to reduce pollution, is supported by data from a number of institutions, including the government, the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) Jakarta, and the Indonesian Biodiversity group.

Walton said major industrial cities outside Jakarta were unlikely to bring their hazardous waste to the Cileungsi hazardous waste treatment plant, near Jakarta, for financial reasons.

The Cileungsi treatment plant is the only facility in Indonesia that has processing capabilities as well as a secure storage area and a lined landfill for the disposal of stabilized and low-level toxins.

In 2002, the Cileungsi plant treated over 32,000 tons of hazardous waste, an increase from about 30,000 tons in 2001 and 27,000 tons in 2000.

Walton urged the administrations in major industrial cities to set up databases on hazardous waste in their cities, in order to provide information and monitor the types of hazardous waste, locations and quantities.

Monitoring also should be conducted frequently and concentrations of mercury, copper and chromium should be measured regularly, Walton said.

Yanuardi Rasudin, deputy assistant in charge of mining, energy, oil and gas at the Office of the State Minister for the Environment, said the monitoring and regular measuring of hazardous waste should be increased to minimize the threat of toxic waste to the environment and human health.

He said there had been a positive trend over the last two years of firms seeking licenses to treat their own hazardous waste, in response to a government program to environmentally audit companies that pollute the environment.

As of November 2002, the government has issued 219 licenses to companies that produce hazardous waste to treat their own waste.

"What we should do now is monitor the hazardous waste management of companies to see whether they are complying with our requirements," he said.