North Jakarta faces waste crisis

JAKARTA: The North Jakarta Municipality is facing a serious waste crisis in the area of Muara Angke because it has too few boats to ferry the waste away from the area to the dump site.

North Jakarta sanitation office head Barmen Sijabat said on Wednesday that they could only carry away 40 cubic meters of trash per day using their five boats.

"We see at least 100 cubic meters of garbage per day going to the rivers resulting in huge mounds of trash," Barmen complained.

He attributed the mounds of garbage to the bad habits of squatters living along riverbanks who often throw their household waste directly into the rivers.

"Stop using rivers as dumps, please," he pleaded. -- JP.