Indonesia You Are A Disgrace!

The river Citarum

from JoeUser Forums

The river Citarum just outside Jakarta
Twenty years ago, this was a place of beauty, and the river still served its people well.
The river still served its people well…………….served its people……….see how the people have treated the servant that has served them so well, nourished them for so long.
A vile mess. A pigsty. A filthy brew of pollution. An utter disrespect for nature. You should be ashamed of yourselves. There is NO EXCUSE for this!

The carpet of refuse is so dense that the tiny wooden fishing craft which float through it are the only clue to the presence of water.









More than 500 factories, many of them producing textiles which require chemical treatment, line the banks of the 200-mile river, the largest waterway in West Java, spewing waste into the water.

On top of the chemicals go all the other kinds of human detritus from the factories and the people who work there.

There is no such luxury as a rubbish collection service here. Nor are there any modern toilet facilities. Everything goes into the river.

The filthy water is sucked into the rice paddies, while families risk their health by collecting it for drinking, cooking and washing.

Twenty years ago, this was a place of beauty, and the river still served its people well.

As one local man, Arifin, recalled: "Our wives did their washing there and our children swam."

You vile filthy disgusting excuse for human beings - clean up your bloody act! Link Link
2,240 views 16 replies
Siege of Centauri
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Ugh wow why do you think it's like that? Can they not afford to put in some sort of filter system? That seems ridiculous though. I feel bad for the people who live along that river and have no control over what is dumped into it. They really need to work out some other way of disposing of waste, that is awful.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
There is no such luxury as a rubbish collection service here. Nor are there any modern toilet facilities. Everything goes into the river.


It looks that way, EVERYTHING goes in the water.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
oh whoops, I guess the people who live along the river are partially to blame. But still, you'd think they'd want to work something out considering they have to live there.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
The big question is where should that rubbish go? Jakarta is a city of over 8 million souls and practically no organised garbage collection service (you couldn't fit a truck down most of the residential streets and alleys). Add to that a distinct lack of dumps and you get the problem they have today.

Multiply that by the general poverty of the country (brought on mostly by rampant corruption) and I'm not sure there's much the average Jakartan can really do about it. Those who could - like Governor Sutiyoso - are either crippled by limited budgets and political contacts or crippled by extensive political contacts and dubious histories (Sutiyoso for example has been implicated in the Balibo shootings).

So while it's all well and good to cry 'Indonesia you are a disgrace' you'd be much more helpful sending money to one of the environmental movements that try and clean up Indonesian rivers and jungles and return them to some sort of cleanliness.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
So while it's all well and good to cry 'Indonesia you are a disgrace' you'd be much more helpful sending money to one of the environmental movements that try and clean up Indonesian rivers and jungles and return them to some sort of cleanliness.


Throw MONEY at the problem! Screw education, they're too dumb to get it any way, let's just send over some Benajmins and it will all go away!

K, now having said that:

Yes, the immediate remedy of the problem will require money. There's no way around that, as unpleasant a prospect as it may be. Should we help? Yes, because the world's water and food supply are so interconnected that what endangers them may well endanger us. One need look no further back than the recent tainted pet food to see this truth.

But a responsible approach would include educating the poor who live on those banks about what their pollution is doing and providing clean and viable means of disposal. Cleaning up the river has no point to it if you need to go back next week and lather, rinse, repeat.

Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top

But a responsible approach would include educating the poor who live on those banks about what their pollution is doing and providing clean and viable means of disposal. Cleaning up the river has no point to it if you need to go back next week and lather, rinse, repeat.


What do you think the environmental movements do? I had a yank friend who spent some time with one in Jakarta. They were organising canal boats to transport garbage through urban areas. I'm not sure what happened to the group but they had a thriving little mini-economy running on that - the canal folk would, as usual, sift through the garbage for things they could immediately use (food, skins from animal bodies, clothes and shoes from human ones etc) and then it would be boated down to a collection point further downstream to be sorted, and then put into trucks to be taken to the tip. The scheme was, according to my mate, fiendishly expensive in Indo terms, but at least it was doing something.

Education is never going to work until a way is worked out to actually cart the garbage out. And even then a place will need to be found. In an island the size of Java, which has 90 million inhabitants, that's not as easy as it sounds. Especially with their appalling road system. The volcanic nature of the region might be exploited, but there are no really active volcanoes within usable distance of Jakarta and even if there were no one's really sure what dumping several million tonnes of waste into a volcanic fissure would actually do. (Poisonous gas clouds? Explosions? Eruption?)

The best thing that could be done is to reduce the waste in the first place, but I doubt the Indo government has the strength to push those kinds of legislations through, especially with development being so high on the agenda.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
What do you think the environmental movements do?


I have seen very, VERY few groups of liberal persuasions focus on their own obsolescence. They're usually focused on getting more funding. IF the groups are working on the education front and on actually solve the problem, then yes, they're headed in the right direction. But years of seeing glorified welfare bums pander for a check have left me more than a little cynical.
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
I have seen very, VERY few groups of liberal persuasions focus on their own obsolescence. They're usually focused on getting more funding. IF the groups are working on the education front and on actually solve the problem, then yes, they're headed in the right direction. But years of seeing glorified welfare bums pander for a check have left me more than a little cynical.


On the main environmental groups in Indonesia aren't liberals - they're often politically conservative in the classical sense (the desire to preserve). If anything they tend to be apolitical (Suharto saw to that and it's only just beginning to change). It's an interesting feature of some third world states that their political systems and actors are not identical to those found in the continental US.
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top

This is not new, and shows the achilees heel of Kyoto.  The US had a river catch fire because of the pollution.  Then we got serious about it and started cleaning it up.  Many industrialized nations have made great strides in managing polution and making sure it is no longer the problem that it is in the developing nations. 

The fact that it has already happened, is education for the nations where it is happening.  There are ways to fix the problem, but they are being ignored for one reason or another.  And Environmental groups have no pull when the government - and the people - do not care.  That is why Greenpeace and others do not bother with them.  If you are going to spend money to correct a problem, just like in business, you are going to spend it where it makes a difference. 

And that is the catch 22 of the situation.  Vilify Europe and the US all you want, but the reality is they are working on this issue.  Other nations dont care about it, and are not about to start cleaning things up no matter how many fish or whales die.

Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
But they are Kyoto signatories! They can't have polluting factories!


Greywar: Well that is a joke isn't it? unbelievable

They really need to work out some other way of disposing of waste, that is awful.


AmandaP: The fact they have not worked out a waste system speaks volumes on how backward, uncivilised and uneducated they are. Disgraceful, I cannot respect a people or a country like this.

It looks that way, EVERYTHING goes in the water.


Poison: A lack of education is no excuse, good common sense says you need clean water, do not dump in it. Filthy fuckers.

The big question is where should that rubbish go? Jakarta is a city of over 8 million souls and practically no organised garbage collection service (you couldn't fit a truck down most of the residential streets and alleys). Add to that a distinct lack of dumps and you get the problem they have today.

Multiply that by the general poverty of the country (brought on mostly by rampant corruption) and I'm not sure there's much the average Jakartan can really do about it. Those who could - like Governor Sutiyoso - are either crippled by limited budgets and political contacts or crippled by extensive political contacts and dubious histories (Sutiyoso for example has been implicated in the Balibo shootings).


Cacto: Nice to see you.
Fitting a truck down an alley is a poor excuse, a bicycle pulling a cart for rubbish to be emptied into is better than nothing. Where there is a will there is a way.

As for their politics, that too is a piss poor excuse, good common sense says you need your clean water supply to nourish the land and the people. No matter how poor a country is, how war torn or how politically corrupt, there is NO EXCUSE for mistreating your natural and vital source to nourishment the way Indonesia has done. They have a complete and utter lack of respect for themselves as a nation to be so filthy around themselves and to disrespect the river the way they have done.

They have a lack of respect for the natural resources around them that have nourished the land and the people for so many centuries (I have not researched the river, so do not know its history, subject to correction here)

And even then a place will need to be found


Landfill sites are being used around the civilised world, whilst they may not be a perfect solution they are better than dumping in the river. They can find ways of disposing of the rubbish if they wanted to. They could do the same as China and create factories to recycle waste, thereby creating jobs for people and income etc.

So while it's all well and good to cry 'Indonesia you are a disgrace' you'd be much more helpful sending money to one of the environmental movements that try and clean up Indonesian rivers and jungles and return them to some sort of cleanliness.


This should not be necessary in the first place. That being said, yes that is one way of dealing with it.
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
Yes, the immediate remedy of the problem will require money. There's no way around that, as unpleasant a prospect as it may be. Should we help? Yes, because the world's water and food supply are so interconnected that what endangers them may well endanger us. One need look no further back than the recent tainted pet food to see this truth.

But a responsible approach would include educating the poor who live on those banks about what their pollution is doing and providing clean and viable means of disposal. Cleaning up the river has no point to it if you need to go back next week and lather, rinse, repeat.


Yes, an education programme would be a start and a way of making changes. Personally though I think they need to get some self respect back in their lives, when they do that they may be more inclined to look after the things around them.

As I said to Poison/Cacto, I also feel a lack of education is a poor excuse, a reality yes, but a poor excuse as common sense says look after the river. The river waters and feeds us, plain old common sense.

It is going to be a monumental task to get that river clean again and repopulate it with living plants and fish etc.
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
This is not new, and shows the achilees heel of Kyoto. The US had a river catch fire because of the pollution. Then we got serious about it and started cleaning it up. Many industrialized nations have made great strides in managing polution and making sure it is no longer the problem that it is in the developing nations.

The fact that it has already happened, is education for the nations where it is happening. There are ways to fix the problem, but they are being ignored for one reason or another. And Environmental groups have no pull when the government - and the people - do not care. That is why Greenpeace and others do not bother with them. If you are going to spend money to correct a problem, just like in business, you are going to spend it where it makes a difference.


If Sanctions or some such thing could be put in place to put pressure on the government to act. Some would argue that sanctions would cause hardship for the people. So What? If they stopped and thought about it then, they might do something about it. The whole nation needs a kick up the backside to get them motivated enough to actually do something about it.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
When the diseases kick in and the starvation kicks in - who you gonna call?

"No-one we jus gonna put our hand out and beg for handouts! Making damn sure we look sad enough and sorry enough to generate sympathy and to get your hearts to bleed for us."

Well guess what Indonesia - you will not get a penny from me. You wade into that river, you collect your crap and your rubbish you have dumped there every day, you give life back to your river and I will then send you a penny.

A hard line has to be taken with countries like this that abuse their natural resources.

Am I being a bitch or what? I really think "fuck you Indonesia" and will continue to do so until that river is restored to a natural healthy state.