Violations of environmental law 'rife'

Tony Hotland, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Disposing of unprocessed hazardous waste in the environment and the absence of waste management licenses are examples of the violations committed by companies, an official said on Tuesday.

The Deputy State Minister for the Environment for Environmental Impact from Institutional Sources, Isa Karmisa Ardiputra, said there were many companies disposing of their (toxic) waste without processing it, despite having facilities that are capable of making them safe.

"These companies, mostly textile and fabric firms, say that using or operating the processing equipment is too expensive because they have to spend more on energy, maintenance costs and other items. It's really bad," Isa told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

He was commenting on the results of an environmental management audit (PROPER) conducted on 251 companies here. The outcome will be made public next week.

Forty-three firms were given a "black" mark and 87 a "red" label, showing that they either had not made efforts to conserve their surrounding environment or had not met the minimum standards for environmental conservation.

Another 112 firms received a "blue" label, which means they had just met the minimum standard, and nine were categorized as "green", for making substantial efforts, as stipulated in environmental laws, to preserve the environment.

No firm won the "gold" label, which praises a firm's efforts in preserving the environment and containing the industrial impacts that affect the environment.

Isa also said many companies had not obtained the required licenses allowing them to dispose of hazardous wastes, which have specific regulations about doing it safely.

"They claimed they didn't know they had to obtain such licenses ... I don't know if they really didn't know or pretended to not know," he said.

The office's assessment team, comprising environmental experts, legal experts, activists and representatives from the World Bank, has given the firms a week to challenge the audit result.

"We might revise the result if they can provide valid data that shows our data was wrong, although the possibility is slim because we collected some of our data using theirs," said Isa.

The 251 firms surveyed, far more than last year's survey of only 85 firms, are mostly located on Java and include manufacturing, mining, agriculture and oil companies.

Isa said the audit result, as always, would not have any legal consequences, so the black-labeled companies will not be punished by a court of law for environmental crimes.

"Even so, the punishment will mostly come from the public and shareholders. There was one firm whose shares at the stock exchange fell when we announced it was not friendly to the environment. Or one firm in East Java, which lost a big contract after their client found out about our survey," he asserted.

State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar has said that the audit team was still considering the possibility of taking the black-listed firms to court if no improvements were made within six months.