Most firms ignore waste treatment
Most firms ignore waste treatment
Damar Harsanto, Jakarta
Only 26 percent of a total of 2,173 medium and large-scale
enterprises in the city regularly submitted samples of their
liquid waste for assessment, the Jakarta Environmental Management
Agency said.
The remaining 1,602 enterprises failed to deliver reports of
the liquid waste they produced as set out in gubernatorial decree
No.299/1996.
The decree requires all enterprises producing liquid waste to
treat the waste before disposing of it into rivers. It also
requires firms to send samples of the treated waste to the agency
every three months.
The companies on the list include hotels, apartments, office
buildings, restaurants, hospitals, and industrial plants.
The above figures do not include registered small-scale
enterprises such as community markets, small workshops and small
offices which amount up to at least 15,845 concerns.
"Worse still, out of 571 companies which have sent their
samples to us, only 35 percent, or 199 companies, comply with the
decree and send us the samples every three months. The rest
submit the samples every four months, six months, or even only
once a year," head of the agency's liquid waste control division
Joni Tagor Harahap told The Jakarta Post recently.
"No wonder the quality of our river water is getting worse,"
Joni said.
High levels of pollution in the city's 13 rivers is suspected
of being behind the red tide phenomenon, which killed thousands
of fish in Jakarta Bay in May.
Joni said his office had no legal powers to punish the
unscrupulous companies.
"We only have the gubernatorial decree as a guideline -- it
does not carry legal sanctions ... we need a bylaw which will
give us stronger instruments to punish the violators."
However, Indonesian Center for Environmental Law head Rino
Subagio said Joni's argument was spurious.
"The real issue here is whether the agency has the political
will because the administration has ignored the existing Law No.
23/1997 on the environment.
"The law authorizes all environment management agencies to
control the liquid waste treatment of any enterprises," he told
the Post.
The law gave the administration the power to censure
transgressing companies and the city could close companies down
if they continued to ignore existing regulations, Rino said.
The law says companies found to be polluting the environment
with liquid waste are given six months to improve their treatment
facilities. If they fail to meet the deadline, the agency has the
power to close the waste treatment facility, the area of
production causing the waste, or the entire production process.