Realize the Public Toilet Facilities

KOMPAS/TOTOK WIJAYANTO

A resident brushes his teeth before taking a bath in the Ciliwung River in Kampung Melayu, East Java, Sunday (18/11/2018). Ciliwung River is the center of activities for residents who live along the river’s embankments.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS —  The habit of defecating anywhere happens especially due to the fact that the location of houses cannot be equipped with sanitation facilities and the absence of funds to build toilets.

Head of Neighborhood Community (RW) 002 Muhammad Rosyid has been dealing with sanitation management in his area for 9 years. A number of residents in RW 002 of Duri subdistrict live along a water channel that is about 2 meters wide. This has happened since the 1980s.

RW 002’s area of about 5.5 hectares, inhabited by 4,725 people, consists of 15 neighborhood units (RT). In the densely-populated residential area like this, there is not left area for the residents to build toilets, let alone private septic tanks. The residents have been forced to defecate at the water channel around their living area. "There are no residents who are able to linger outside their houses for a long time due to bad smell," Rosyid said.

Fortunately in 2016, the Citra Insan Indonesia Development Foundation (YPCII), Tanggul Bencana Indonesia Foundation, Plan International Indonesia, SPEAK Indonesia, and Win Development helped the residents by building two liquid waste processing installations.

Within two years, the two liquid waste processing facilities were inadequate to serve the rising number of local residents. One facility, which was designed for 10 families, is now utilized by 20-30 families. The facilities have also been poor maintained, thereby forcing them to defecate anywhere again.

“I don’t have no idea as to why it is very difficult to promote a healthy life, even though I has felt the ‘horror’ of the experiencing the bad habit,” Rosyid said.

This condition has forced the residents to meet and decide that they have to add the liquid waste processing installations and public toilets. The residents also intend to install CCTV camera to monitor residents who defecate anywhere. Hover the plan has not been realized due to the lack of funds.

There are residents who are reluctant to pay a contribution of Rp 20,000 per family per month for the maintenance of the liquid waste processing facilities. YPCII Program Coordinator Marjiyanto, one of the activists who took part in building the facilities in the area, said that the intension of the residents to work hand-in-hand among them to create healthy environment remains low.

The RW 002 case is one of the many similar examples in Greater Jakarta, also in Indonesia. The results of Basic Health Research in 2018 show that the number of residents aged above 10 years to have the habit of defecating properly reaches 88.2 percent or slightly increasing from the 2013 research of 82.6 percent.

Environment Health Director of the Health Ministry Imran Agus Nurali admitted many families still live in difficult locations, like on river embankments and coastal areas. They do not have adequate funds to build the own toilets. Communal toilets and liquid waste treatment facilities are one of the best and quickest solutions for the problem.

Unattended rules

Sanitation business development expert and consultant Budi Darmawan said on Monday (19/11/2018) that around 15 years ago the Philippines studied in Indonesia related to sanitation issues. As a result, the Philippines is currently more advanced than Indonesia. In 2015, he accompanied a group from Indonesia to study sanitation issues in the Philippines.

Malaysia, according to Budi, is also more advanced in the management of sanitation of the residents. This is reflected in the ranking of countries in the list of the Human Development Index.

At present Malaysia is at the 57th rank in the latest Human Development Index, The Philippines is in the 113th position and Indonesia the 116th among a total of 189 countries. The data was quoted on Monday from the website http://hdr.undp.org, the official site of UNDP.

Budi said that about 50 percent of toilets in Greater Jakarta area are classified in a category which is not proper technically and in the environment sanitation concept. The habit of defecating anywhere is predicted to still be carried out by 30 percent among the defecating activities. “Many regulations already exist, but their implementation is without any supervision,” Budi said.

6.000 liquid waste treatment facilities

Head of the Jakarta Water Resources Office Teguh Hendarwan said that thus far about 3 million of Jakarta residents do not have access to the liquid water treatment facilities. With a calculation that one facility has a capacity to serve 200 families, about 6,000 communal facilities are needed.

“This problem has become the attention because it affect many other urban problems. This has threatened our country,” he said on Tuesday (20/11/2018).

The construction of communal liquid waste treatment facilities has become the main target of the Jakarta Water Resource Office in 2019. Thus far, the construction of the communal facilities is hindered greatly by the absence of land plots.

In order to deal with the problem, Teguh said, the construction of the liquid waste treatment facilities will be carried out near the pump houses, reservoirs and lakes, which are under the supervision of the Jakarta Water Resource Office. According to the plan 70 communal liquid waste treatment facilities will be built at a cost of about Rp 150 billion in 2019. The construction will be carried on land and in Seribu Islands area. “Previously we already built communal facilities in Grogol reservoir and a number of other locations,” he added. ( INK/ IRE/ADH/ E06)