There’s an enormous wealth gap between the rich and poor citizens of Jakarta, and there’s perhaps no better statistic to illustrate that than this one that the city government just dropped.
According to the city’s deputy governor for spatial planning and the environment, Oswar Muadzin Mungkas, this year the government is starting to develop a communal waste system as there are still thousands of Jakartans who don’t have access to toilets and therefore excrete their waste in public areas.
“Our target is that, by developing this system, the 37,000 Jakartans who still defecate in random places won’t do so anymore within five years,” Oswar said, as quoted by JPNN yesterday.
Those “random” places where low income Jakartans excrete waste are usually naturally occurring waterways in the city, such as the Ciliwung River, which has long been infamous for its filthiness.
Oswar said that the city will begin by building communal toilets and septic tanks, particularly for slum dwellers who have built settlements on the city’s river banks. These would later be connected to a septic pipe system to transport the waste away from the slums in order to keep them hygienic.
In five years time, Oswar said the city government is targeting that 80% of Jakarta will be connected to the septic pipe system.
In the meantime, it’s probably in everybody’s best interest not to jump into any of Jakarta’s rivers.
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