SOLVING POLLUTION PROBLEMS IN JAKARTA

Pollutions for many people are classical, unsolved, and confusing problems. Especially for Jakartan, they are so familiar with pollution because they are living in polluted area. Living in polluted water, land, and air, is Jakarta’s daily menu. Actually, pollution problems can be solved easily if we really want to do it. There are many methods that can be used to solve these problems. Therefore, pollution problems in Jakarta can be solved in different ways based on their types.

The first type of pollution problems in Jakarta is water pollution, which can be solved by raising people’s awareness and giving strict penalty to industry which pollutes water. Based on survey by BPLHD Jakarta (Jakarta ecological monitoring agency) in 2004, all rivers in Jakarta, 13 rivers, have been polluted, so they can’t be used as source of drinking water. Not only have waters in those rivers been polluted, but also 63 % of ground waters in Jakarta have been polluted with Escherichia coli bacteria, said USAID Indonesia. According to Nusa Idaman Said, researcher from BPPT(Research and Developing Technology Agency), total amount of waste water entering Jakarta rivers system is approximately 1.316.113 m³/day. It is divided into 75% from domestics, 15 % from office and business area, and 10% from industries. However, he said, based on organic and chemical contents, waste water from office and business area are the biggest sources of water pollution that are reaching about 70.(Media Indonesia, 31 Mei 2002, Rubrik Kesra). These realities happen because people throw away garbage and waste water into rivers. Also, they direct the flow of their excrements from lavatory into them because only 39% are Jakartan houses to own septic tank. On the other hand, there are only 400 out of 4000 industries in Jakarta having waste water installation. Based on these situations, basically water pollution in Jakarta can be solved technically easily by giving awareness to Jakartan not to discard rubbish into rivers, providing septic tank for every house, giving hard sanction for industries those doesn’t have waste water treatment installation.

The second type of pollution problem in Jakarta is land pollution that can be solved through some methods. According to Wikipedia, land pollution is the degradation of Earth's land surfaces. It is often caused by human activities and the misuse of land resources. Urbanization and industrialization are major causes of land pollution. Therefore, as a metropolitan city, Jakarta faces this problem also. Jakarta has only 9.3 % green open area from 661.52 square km of its size areas. This reality is definitely lesser than ideal condition ruled by Indonesia regulation number 26 year 2007 about environment layout (tata ruang). Based on this regulation, a city must provide at least 30% from its size for green open area (RTH-ruang terbuka hijau). The other problems are people throw away waste (solid and liquid) in any places, and open dumping system in trash management by Jakarta government such as at final disposal waste Bantar Gebang. There are some methods that can be done to reduce the effects that are caused by land pollution. Firstly, people must be educated and warned not to dispose garbage into land but in litter basket so that they must prepare many trash bins in Jakarta. Secondly, they must develop well management open dumping system that is environmentally friendly using contemporary technology. Next, in order to follow lawsuit of regulation, local government must increase their green open area which can also solve air problem. Finally, for the regions that are being polluted, the effects of pollution can be reduced technically by remediation or bioremediation methods. Remediation is an activity to clean up polluted land surface. There are two types of remediation namely in-situ (on-site) and ex-situ (off-site). On-site cleaning is implemented at location that was polluted customarily cleaning, venting, and bioremediation. This method is easily and cheaply than other. Meanwhile, off-site cleaning is applied out of polluted land area. This method is started by excavating contaminated soil. Afterwards, it is carried to safe area. On that area, those soils are cleaned from contaminant substances by placing it in impenetrable tank and pumping cleaning agent into it. This method is expensive and complicated. Bioremediation, used in on-site method, is a cleaning process by using microorganism such as fungi. It having a goal to break or degrade pollutants from hazardous compound to harmless compound.

Finally, the last type of pollution problem is air pollution which can be solved by reducing number of motor vehicles, filtering exhaust gas of every machine, and planting more plants. In Indonesia, Jakarta is the most contaminated city so that it is called as “pollution city” by its people. In global scale, Jakarta is the third polluted city in the world after Mexico and Bangkok. The most significant source of air pollution in Jakarta is exhaust gas from motor vehicles that is approximately 70 %. Based on data from Indonesia Police Commission, in June 2009, the numbers of vehicles that listed in Jakarta are 9.993.867, whereas the population of this city is only 8.513.385 on March 2009. This comparison showed that numbers of conveyance in Jakarta are more than its populations. However, this numbers of vehicle still increase by 10.9 % per year. Meanwhile, the length of roads is only 6.26 % from total area of Jakarta. Actually, ideal ratio for road infrastructure compared to city area is 14 percent. In this condition, it is easy to understand that traffic congestion is hard to handle and air pollution is rising. On the other hand most of factories in Jakarta have not an absorber installation on their smokestack in order to absorb hazardous gases from their activities. Leak of green open areas are also one of the factors that cause pollution rate to be continuously rising. To reduce air pollution level, local government of Jakarta launched a program called “Car Free Day”, in which cars (and also motorcycle) are not allowed to enter some areas in Jakarta. Pursuant to BPLHD Jakarta, this program proved having a productive result to reduce air pollution level in Jakarta, whereas during 2009 pollutions parameters decrease, 37 % for dust, 67 % for carbon monoxide( CO ), and 75% for nitrogen monoxide (NO). In the future, this program must be continued and the areas are imperative to be widened. The other solutions are government must point out that every motor vehicle must be installed with catalytic converter to absorb harmful gases and every factory must provide absorber unit in order to control their gas pollutions. Every encroachment by whoever must be given hard punishment.

As we have seen, it is not impossible to solve Jakarta pollution problems because they can be handled easily based on their characteristics. The most important thing is the best collaboration between government and the community. Government must be able to invite all of people to be joints to keep their own environment because people activities are the main factor of pollution. On the other hand, government must be assertive to perform law enforcement. Law must be maintained without any exception to whomever. In addition, as citizens, jakartan must be awakened in order to guard their environment. They must know that government can’t do anything without their help. If these happen, we can see blue skies every day, inhale fresh air everywhere, enjoy clean rivers everyplace, in Jakarta. Would us ?