Depok has a serious litter problem, so the government has put together an “army” to keep the capital’s satellite city clean.
The Depok city administration has deployed 1,800 cleaners and park workers as part of the city’s new “laskar kebersihan” (cleanliness army) program. In addition to cleaning up the city themselves, laskar kebersihan troops were also given the authority to catch litterers and send them to court to pay a fine for littering.
“Most of the litterers are Depok citizens,” said Eti Suryati, Depok’s head of Sanitation and Parks Agency, as quoted by Tempo yesterday.
The punishment for littering in Depok is either a fine of Rp 200,000 or 14 days in prison.
Eti estimated that 250 tons of trash gets littered in Depok daily. That is sadly a substantial portion of Depok’s daily trash output, which averages at 1,250 tons.
According to Eti, most of the littering in Depok is done on roads and the city’s rivers and canals. She noted that motorcyclists are among the most common litter culprits in Depok.
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