Sea Pollutions Need Solution

KOMPAS/WAWAN H PRABOWO

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JAKARTA, KOMPAS — The mercury and plastic pollution in several Indonesian seas need an immediate solution. Aside from being economically detrimental, the pollutants affect public health, as some of the marine products are unsafe for consumption.

The contaminated marine products also find it difficult to enter the export market, bringing losses to many parties.

“Almost all regions that we studied in the past 10 years show they are contaminated with mercury, particularly in the waters of urban areas with high human activity,” said Bogor Institute of Agriculture fisheries and marine researcher Etty Riani on Sunday (10/9). Mercury contamination was found in seawater, marine sediments and coral reefs.

Some seas found to be contaminated with mercury are: Jakarta Bay, Lampung Bay, Situbondo (East Java), the Berau coastline (East Kalimantan), Arar Port in Sorong (West Papua), Serang waters, Banten Bay, the Timika coastling (Papua), Bayur Bay (West Sumatra) and Pelabuhan Ratu (Sukabumi).

Mercury pollution has been occurring for decades while plastic pollution –whether macro, micro or nano –has arisen recently. Plastic waste is visible to the naked eye, but micro plastic has a diameter of less than 5 millimeter, or the size of sesame seeds at about 330 microns (0.33 mm). Meanwhile, nano plastic is smaller than 330 microns.

The latest research by Noir Primadona Purba from the marine department of Padjadjaran University, Bandung, found a high pile of plastic waste around Biawak Island in Indramayu, West Java. Researches at 46 other locations in the Java Sea, around the Thousand Islands and Banten also found a high level of plastic pollution.

Plastic waste

Agung Yunanto, a researcher at the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry’s Denpasar Marine Observation and Research Institute, said the waters he had studied, such as the Bali Strait, Makassar Strait and Dumai’s Rupat Strait, was contaminated with plastic waste. Micro plastic pollution was evident in deep seas like the Banda Sea.

The breadth of plastic pollution in Indonesian waters supports the study by Jenna Jambeck, a researcher from the University of Georgia in the United States. Her research published in Science Journal (2015) says Indonesia was the second largest plastic waste producer after China. Of the 5.4 million tons of plastic waste per year that the country produces, around 0.5-1.5 million tons are dumped into the sea.

“We do not have data to counter Jenna Jambeck’s study,” said Heru Waluyo, a former director of marine pollution at the Environment and Forestry Ministry. However, he acknowledged that plastic pollution in Indonesian seas was very high. Indonesia produced 65 million tons of waste in 2015, of which 14 percent was plastic waste.

In fact, pollution caused by mainly micro and nano plastic can enter the marine food chain and into the human body through the consumption of contaminated fish. Joint research conducted by Hasanuddin University and the University of California, Davis (2014 and 2015) found micro plastic pollutants inside the intestines of fish and shellfish sold at the fish markets in Makassar, South Sulawesi. The research was published in the international scientific journal, Nature, in September 2015.

“One-third of the sample, or 28 percent, contained micro plastic,” said Hasanuddin University Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Department professor and co-researcher Akbar Tahir. They researched 76 fish species.

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Department dean Agung Dhamar Syaktiat Riau’s Raja Ali Haji Maritime University said plastic waste could release poisonous chemical compounds like nonylphenols into the sea. Micro plastic could easily bind poisonous pollutants like pesticides and mercury. Those pollutants could cause cancer, genetic mutations and affect embryonic development.

Mercury

Another thing that people must be aware of is mercury contamination of seawater. The latest research shows that mercury contamination in several Indonesian seas had passed the safety limit, with increasing intensity and coverage.

The Semarang Environment Office’s 2015 data shows that seawater and upstream waters in the city had been contaminated with mercury. Semarang Environment Office head Gunawan Saptogiri acknowledged that the contamination of the Semarang Bay coastal area was growing severe.

Mercury contamination was also found in marine biota near gold mining areas, such as Kayeli Bay in Buru Island, Maluku, according to a 2015research by Yusthinus T Male, a lecturer of the Math and Science Department at Pattimura University.

Researcher Dwiyitno at the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry’s Biotechnology and Product Manufacturing Research institute said Indonesia’s maritime products were rejected by the European Union and the United States because of their contamination by mercury, pathogenic microbes, histamine residues and veterinary medicine.

Etty said the economic loss from marine pollution in Indonesia would be greater if we also included the health of affected people and permanent ecology destruction.

(AIK/DIT/REN/FRN)