Level of Jakarta air pollution unknown
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Jakarta is rated the world's third most polluted city after Mexico City and Bangkok, but an expert from the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) warns that the full extent of air pollution in the capital remains unknown.
Researcher Driejana of ITB's Air Quality Laboratory told a seminar here last week that the capital, populated by around 12 million people, has only five air monitors, a far cry from the ideal of one monitor per 200,000 people.
On top of that, air pollution indexes displayed by the monitors were from the previous day, making it almost impossible to know the real time of air pollution control.
"We cannot use the displays as an early warning instrument for travelers because the information is out of date," she told participants of a workshop on city policy for air control.
According to data from the Jakarta Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD), the city has only five air monitors, namely in Senayan, Central Jakarta; Pondok Indah, South Jakarta; Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, and at the offices of South and West Jakarta municipalities.
The display screens, on the other hand, are stationed in Rawamangun and Cakung, East Jakarta; Pondok Indah; Pluit, North Jakarta and Gambir, Central Jakarta.
The monitors measure five parameters of main pollutants -- particulate matters with a diameter of less than 10 micron (PM10), nitrogen oxide (NOx) sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and ozone (O3).
Driejana said the separate placement of monitors and air pollution indexes displays was another weakness of the monitoring system "because what is displayed there does not indicate the conditions of the air in the respective area".
City officials claimed earlier that the number of days with clean air had steadily decreased in the past few years.
She said the number of air monitors in the city was far from enough and Jakarta, with its 12 million population, needed at least 600 monitors.
A proper air pollution monitoring system was the most significant part of efforts to reduce air pollution, she added
"How can we start to clean up the air if we do not have valid data about air pollution?" Driejana said.
Tjuk Sudono, an environmentalist with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), questioned the seriousness of the city administration in overcoming air pollution when it did very little to resolve the basic problem of air pollution.
"It is the task of environmentalists to force the city to allocate a larger budget for environment protection, including cleaning up the city's air," said Tjuk at the workshop organized by Swisscontact, the Partnership for Clean Emission and the Indonesian People's Foundation (YOI).
In February, the city enacted Bylaw No. 2/2005 on air pollution control, which comes into effect next year. Among the measures stipulated in the bylaw are smoking restrictions and the mandatory use of compressed natural gas (CNG) for public transportation.
But many are pessimistic that all public vehicles would use CNG next year because the city administration had not revealed any concrete policy on preparing the mandatory use of CNG.