TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Jakarta Administration is currently overwhelmed by the trash piling at the Jakarta Bay area. “The volume is much smaller than the trash on land, but it is not easy o collect marine debris,” said Jakarta`s environmental agency deputy head Ali Maulana Hakim yesterday, August 23.
Based on the existing data, Ali said that the trash retrieved daily from the ocean amounts to 20-25 tons while the trash collected from creeks reach 200-400 tons daily. This is, of course, a stark contrast to the land waste that the government collects up to 7,000 tons daily, but is not submerged or floating such as the marine litter.
Read: Enviro Ministry Jakarta Produces 70,000 Tons of Waste Per Day
The sea and river trash vary from the plastic waste, beds that are thrown away, broken television sets, motorcycle parts, until animal carcasses, and many more.
Jakarta official’s responsibility is only backed up by six barges to carry the marine debris each day throughout the Jakarta area which includes the Seribu Islands.
Ali revealed that the current trend suggests that Jakarta’s daily trash production goes hand-in-hand with the city’s growing population. The Jakarta Environmental Agency shows that each Jakarta resident produces waste in the average range of 0.67 kilograms each day and 2.5 million tons annually that mainly consist of plastic waste.
AVIT HIDAYAT