This is no wonder of the world or an amazing thing we humans need to be proud of. We should be ashamed for the way we treated the Planet for the last decade.
Clogged with domestic waste, and contaminated by harmful chemicals, is this the most polluted river in the world? Forty miles east of Jakarta, Indonesia, the river Citarum runs over 186 miles from the Wayang Mountain to the Java Sea.
The island’s largest river supports more than 30 million residents who rely on the water source for agricultural, domestic and personal use.
However, unregulated factory growth since the area’s rapid industrialisation in the 1980s has choked the Citarum with both human and industrial waste. The river, now known as one of the most polluted in the world, is unrecognisable as part of the Parahyangan region. Some estimate there are more than 2,000 industrial facilities, including 200 textile mills and garment factories, concentrated in the Citarum River Valley in the Bandung region. For decades, the Indonesian government has permitted factories to flush untreated wastewater into canals leading to the river, as long as the effluent didn't contain certain chemicals deemed too hazardous. In May, the Indonesian High Court, ruling in a lawsuit brought by Greenpeace Indonesia and community organizations ruled to suspend, cancel, and revoke government decrees allowing legal dumping by three of Indonesia's largest factories—PT Kahatex, PT Insan Sandan Internusa and PT Five Star Textile. The factories have appealed the ruling, arguing that without their wastewater dumping permits, they will be forced to close and put tens of thousands of people out of work. The case is currently pending before the Indonesian Supreme Court.
The Indonesian government, meanwhile, blames the vast majority of the pollution on the region's residents, who dump their household trash and flush raw sewage into the river. Many of the smaller villages lining the Citarum River have no public garbage collection or landfills, leaving people to choose between burning their waste or throwing it into the river.
The effect on the local ecosystem has been devastating. Fish float dead on the surface of the water, and local fishermen have turned to entrepreneurial methods of survival, picking up plastic from the water for recycling. In current times, the Asian Development Bank has loaned Indonesia $500 million over 15 years to help clean up the Citarum River. But, since so many people and industries use the Citarum’s water, cleansing it may remain more fantasy than reality, unless billions rather than millions are spent on clean-up.
(C) NOTE* The river is the subject of Channel 4's Unreported World. The copyright and rights gows to them.
