New houses required to install plastic septic tanks

New houses required to install plastic septic tanks

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The city administration will require all Jakarta residents
wanting to build new houses to install fiber-reinforced plastic
septic tanks, as part of measures to curb contamination of
groundwater and rivers with untreated waste.

"We will require all residents applying for building permits
to equip their new houses with these modified septic tanks,"
Governor Sutiyoso said, after witnessing a signing ceremony
marking the establishment of PT PAL Jayabumi Utama, a joint
venture company owned by city sewage firm PD PAL Jaya, Malaysian
firm Pembinaan Jayabumi (PJS) Berhard, and local partner PT
Kandiyasa Dirgatama.

Sutiyoso said the administration decided to adopt the
Malaysian technology, which uses a septic tank made of fiber-
reinforced plastic, in order to reduce pollution levels from
sewage because the technology was "more affordable than building
a costly piped sewerage system."

Three years ago, the city administration planned to build deep
tunnels and pipes connecting all houses in the capital, but later
dropped the project because of the extremely high cost, over Rp
50 trillion (US$5.3 billion).

PT PAL Jayabumi Utama, the joint venture company, would
produce septic tanks at its plant at the Jababeka industrial
estate in Bekasi, West Java. The tanks would be sold for between
Rp 4 million to Rp 5 million per unit, depending on size.

PAL Jaya president director Pudjo Prihadi Santoso said that
the administration would be taking a 20 percent share in the US$4
million project.

"Hopefully, we will be able to produce at least 4,000 units of
septic tanks for households this year," Pudjo said.

Aside from septic tanks for households, the company will also
produce community septic tanks that can be shared by more than 50
houses.

Jakarta is apparently in urgent need of better septic tanks.
The City Environmental Management Agency (BPLHD) reported that
only 39 percent of current septic tanks used by residents can
properly neutralize untreated sewage. Also, most of them only
process human waste, leaving other waste waters, such as bathing
and washing water, to run into the city's drainage system and
ending up in the city's rivers.

The agency has repeatedly found high levels of E. coli
bacteria in all of the city's 13 rivers.

The bacteria, which comes from human feces and can cause
gastrointestinal diseases, has seeped through from septic tanks
and has contaminated 80 percent of shallow groundwater wells in
the city.

The agency's data shows that Jakarta's population of some 12
million people produces no less than 1.5 billion liters of sewage
per day.

"Unfortunately, our sewage treatment plants only handle two
percent of total sewage," Sutiyoso said.

Pembinaan Jayabumi Berhad said earlier that the new septic
tanks would reduce pollution levels from sewage to 50 biological
oxygen demand (BOD), from the 75 to 85 BOD of conventional tanks.
It said that the tanks would be equipped with plastic foam that
would act as a filter as well as being a hotbed for decomposing
bacteria.