Indonesia’s fight to clean up ‘the world’s most polluted river’

Wida Widiarti has spent her total life close to the Citarum River on Indonesia’s principal island of Java.

Meaning she has witnessed first-hand how the river mutated from an necessary lifeline right into a disgusting image of utmost environmental air pollution.

Again and again, the Citarum is described in experiences because the “world’s most polluted river”.

“Folks clear up, however the garbage comes again anyway,” says Widiarti, who lives close to Bandung.

Surrounded by mountains, rice paddies and volcanoes, the Javanese metropolis some 100 kilometres south-east of Jakarta, is a well-liked vacation spot for vacationers, however like in so many areas in South-east Asia, a large waste downside lurks beneath the picturesque floor.

Widiarti and her little daughter stand on the river financial institution and take a look at the murky water, affected by plastic bottles, damaged flip-flops and different garbage that’s barely recognizable.

Some months are worse than others, she says. At instances, the water is nearly coated completely by waste. “Even in higher instances, the Citarum isn’t freed from garbage,” she says.

Root causes

Indonesia is taken into account the second largest plastic polluter of the world’s oceans after China and plenty of different international locations within the area even have an enormous waste downside.

That is partially resulting from a quickly rising inhabitants, mass tourism coupled with ever-increasing quantities of plastic waste, insufficient waste separation and the shortage of recycling infrastructure.

In the meantime, many locals merely discard their garbage within the countryside – not solely due to an absence of environmental consciousness, but additionally as a result of there is not any functioning waste assortment service.

However, as well-known US environmental activist Annie Leonard as soon as put it: “There is no such thing as a such factor as ‘away.’ Once we throw something away, it should go someplace.”

An exported European concern?

Garbage shipped from Europe to South-east Asia additionally contributes to the issue.

Based on Germany’s Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), 732,000 tonnes of plastic waste had been exported to Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam in 2024 from Germany alone.

That is even though “checks and recycling infrastructure within the vacation spot international locations are sometimes insufficient,” that means little of the garbage is definitely recycled, in line with the environmentalists.

As a substitute, a lot of Europe’s exported waste leads to incinerators and landfills or is dumped illegally, together with within the sea, NABU says.

Bali and Thailand additionally affected

Indonesia’s waste downside additionally extends to the vacationer hotspot of Bali, a neighbouring island of Java, identified world wide for its as soon as pristine seashores.

However anybody paying a go to to these seashores, notably through the wet season, will quickly be left with the sensation that this is not the paradise they had been offered.

Tonnes of waste are washed ashore on Bali’s coast yearly – with a major proportion coming from native sources, plus waste from different islands transported by ocean currents.

Whereas swimmers frolic within the waves, disposable packaging, straws, polystyrene and plastic cups pile up on the seaside.

The scenario is comparable in Thailand, with some holidaymakers horrified to find the plenty of rubbish washing up on world-famous islands together with Koh Samui and Phuket.

Landfills and garbage assortment are in brief provide and solely work properly in bigger cities equivalent to Bangkok, forcing locals to illegally dump waste, generally simply metres away from five-star motels.

Industrial waste

The 290-kilometre Citarum River winds by way of the guts of West Java province earlier than lastly emptying into the Java Sea on the sting of the Pacific Ocean.

It offers ingesting water, irrigation and hydropower for nearly 30 million folks, together with the residents of Jakarta, a 2-hour drive away.

The air pollution dates again to the Eighties, when the area developed into an industrial centre. Numerous textile factories sprang up on the riverbanks, discharging untreated waste supplies – together with heavy metals, dyes and microplastics – into the water, in line with a 2018 Greenpeace report.

‘AromaticCitarum‘

Chemical substances discarded by a complete of some 2,700 medium-sized and huge firms have contributed to the air pollution of the Citarum, in line with the report.

A 2018 investigation by the Indonesian authorities discovered as much as 340,000 tonnes of hazardous waste entered the river day by day, leaving the water black and coated with poisonous foam in some place till the current day.

The fast development of the city inhabitants compounded the issue, as tonnes of family waste, particularly single-use plastics, find yourself within the river day by day.

To get the scenario beneath management, then-president Joko Widodo launched an formidable clean-up marketing campaign dubbed “Citarum Harum”, which interprets as “aromatic Citarum,” aiming to make the river water drinkable once more inside seven years.

Seven years later…

Now these seven years have handed – and the marketing campaign has produced blended outcomes.

Whereas water high quality has usually improved due to new sewage therapy crops, environmental activists warn that many factories proceed to discharge their poisonous wastewater into the river – particularly beneath the duvet of evening.

Based on a 2023 examine, poisonous seepage from rotting waste on the province’s largest landfill web site additionally leads to the Citarum.

In the meantime, the carpets of garbage persist. Simply final 12 months, pictures and movies of the Citarum went viral, exhibiting officers on small boats attempting to wash up an enormous patch of garbage estimated to stretch 3 kilometres and weighing some 100 tons.

A vicious circle made out of plastic

However the garbage retains on mounting, not least resulting from the truth that residents are compelled to purchase bottled water as a result of they don’t have any entry to wash ingesting water.

“The scenario stays alarming,” Daru Setyorini, an environmental activist with Indonesian group Ecoton, advised dpa.

As a substitute of merely fishing the garbage out of the river, the federal government ought to stop it from getting there within the first place, she says. “The Citarum can’t be saved by cleansing measures alone.”

“If we do not sort out the foundation causes and regulate industries, educate the inhabitants and change to sustainable waste administration – the Citarum will proceed to be in hassle,” she says.