Contaminated Water Threatens People

KOMPAS/TOTOK WIJAYANTO

Children play on Sunday (11/18/2018) during their school holiday in the Ciliwung River that runs through their neighborhood in Bidara Cina, Kampung Melayu, East Jakarta. They appear to enjoy playing in the river, although its waters are dirty and smelly.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS – This nation has not realized its sanitation target. Some domestic waste, including human feces, is dumped directly into rivers and seepage pits. Contamination and disease continue to threaten the people.

Juariah, 41, pointed to a cassava farm not far from her house on Thursday (11/15/2018) in Kampung Kelor RT 002/RW 001 in East Sepatan district, Tangerang regency, Banten.

"I defecated at the farm if the call of nature came and there was a long line to the public toilet. If a farm foreman was on duty, I had to run to the river," said the housewife, adding that the river was about 500 meters behind her house.

Like Juariah, many local residents also used to defecate at nearby farms or in the river. The habit of defecating anywhere is commonplace in Greater Jakarta, or Jabodetabek, comprising the cities of Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi. In Bogor city and regency, for example, more than 25 percent of its population defecates in the open.

In East Jakarta’s Pasar Rebo district, especially along the Kali Baru Timur, white paralon (PVC) pipes extend from the back of residential homes. These PVC pipes, which vary in size, serve as the “plumbing” to dispose household waste directly into the small river.

The Kali Baru Timur flow alongside the Jl. Raya Bogor thoroughfare. Because of the many waste disposal pipes, the banks of the river looks like an installation art of PVC pipes.

“[Human] Feces is everywhere, whenever we [go] clean the river,” Budi Herlambang, 45, an officer at the Jakarta cleaning unit (UPK), said on Wednesday (11/14/2018).

The Pasar Rebo Public Health Center’s 2018 data shows that of the 41,134 residents living in riverbank settlements in five subdistricts, 2,599 people still defecate wherever they choose.

According to North Jakarta cleaning unit head Muhammad Helmi, of the district’s 31 subdistricts, only one had been declared open defecation free (ODF): Kelapa Gading Timur. The target is for all subdistricts to be ODF by 2021.

Environment head Dicky Alsadik of the Jakarta UPK said that to date, 4.74 percent of the Jakarta population defecated openly – or nearly 500,000 out of 10 million Jakartans.

Open defecation also includes residents that have household toilets, but the human waste is dumped directly into a drain without passing through a septic tank.

According to Dicky, only 17 of 267 subdistricts were ODF. Of the remaining subdistricts, 80.63 percent of all residents had permanent sanitation facilities, 9.15 percent had semi-permanent sanitation facilities, and the rest used public or communal sanitation facilities.

The causes of open defecation are many, including itinerant residents that do not have a residence in Jakarta and do not have access to toilets, limited land and the many densely populated, poor areas where residents are unable to afford installing their own toilets.

“Another factor is ingrained habits. Despite the availability of communal toilets, there are those who find it more convenient to defecate in the open,” said Dicky.

Most septic tanks at Jakarta residences also do not meet sanitation standards. Jakarta Waste Water Management (PAL Jaya) president director Subekti said that about 80 percent of 2 million septic tanks in Jakarta were actually seepage pits.

These seepage pits have concrete walls and are open at the bottom so that the waste leaches directly into the soil. Seepage pits are safe if they are installed a minimum 10 meters from sources of groundwater or wells. With Jakarta’s current population density, most seepage pits do not meet this minimum distance requirement.

"E. coli bacteria can travel about 3 meters in a day, and then they die. So, 10 meters is a safe distance," said Subekti.

Jakarta Environment Agency head Isnawa Adji said that the widespread practice of dumping human waste directly into the capital’s rivers meant that Jakarta’s raw water quality was poor.

The agency measures the river water quality at 90 different points four times a year, and measures the water quality are a year at 40 reservoirs. Government Regulation No. 82/2001 sets a maximum limit for E. coli levels at 1,000 per 100 ml of water.

E. coli levels exceeded the limit at 93 sampling points in six rivers in the first and second measurement period this year. Among the six rivers sampled – the Ciliwung, Cipinang, Mookervart, Kalibuar, Tarum Barat and Pesanggrahan – the highest E. coli concentration was found in the Mookevart River, where sampling showed 6.1 billion E. coli cells per 100 ml of water.

10 major diseases

Dicky said that the Jakarta Health Agency had urged all residents to follow proper procedures for preparing groundwater for consumption. They are advised to boil water at more than 70 degrees Celcius to kill the bacteria. To date, 60-65 percent of Jakartans still consume groundwater.

The high concentration of E. coli bacteria in Jakarta’s groundwater has caused diarrheal diseases to be listed among the 10 top diseases that affect Jakarta residents. According to the 2016 Jakarta health profile on the Health Ministry’s website (www.depkes.go.id), state hospitals and puskesmas (community health centers) in the capital treated 226,533 cases of diarrhea. In 2017, the figure jumped to 277,737 cases.

Contaminated water can also cause typhoid and hepatitis, diseases that should not be underestimated. Prolonged diarrhea among toddlers can cause stunting because their bodies cannot properly absorb nutrients from food.

World Toilet Day

World Toilet Day on Nov. 19 highlighted that some of the targets of the 2015-2019 National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) was to achieve 100 percent universal access to water, 0 percent slum settlements and 100 percent elimination of open defecation. According to the 2017 Susenas (National Socioeconomic Survey), 76 percent of the population had access to adequate sanitation.

The provinces of Bali, Bangka Belitung Islands, Gorontalo, Jakarta, West Nusa Tenggara and Yogyakarta have the highest sanitation at above 90 percent.

Nevertheless, Indonesian Toilet Association (ATI) president Naning Adiwoso said that the country had the worst toilets in Asia after India. One of the reasons for this was because the average toilet was unhygienic. "Many look clean, but are not hygienic," she said on the sidelines of the World Toilet Summit on Saturday in Mumbai, India. (PIN/RTS/IRE/HLN/JOG/DEA)