Air Pollution Problem Remains Unresolved

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Air quality in the capital is worsening. People’s health is at stake. Cooperation between central and local governments along with related parties is required to find solutions.

JAKARTA, KOMPAS — This Thursday (1/8/2019) at 9 a.m., the Central Jakarta District Court will hold the first trial session in the civil lawsuit on Jakarta’s air pollution.

Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Jakarta) lawyer Nelson Simanjuntak urged the public to support the lawsuit. “We hope that public support will snowball,” he said.
The five defendants in the civil lawsuit are the President, the environment and forestry minister, the home minister, the health minister and the Jakarta governor. Two more parties were also listed as defendants, namely the West Java governor and the Banten governor.
The Capital City Movement Advocacy Team, which initiated the lawsuit, opened an online complaint channel from 14 March to 14 April to urge people who felt that Jakarta’s air pollution had harmed them to register as plaintiffs. At first, 57 people registered. In the end, the lawsuit listed 31 official plaintiffs.
Plaintiff Istu Prayogi, 54, said that his lungs were declared to be sensitive to polluted air in 2010, with symptoms going back as far as 1995.
Despite residing in Depok, Istu has worked as a lecturer in Jakarta for the past 30 years. Previously, Istu had lived in Purworejo, Central Java. At the time, he had never had any symptoms of air pollution-related illnesses.
Jakarta’s air pollution can trigger terrible headaches for Istu. Now, he is dependent on painkillers. “Some medicines no longer work for me,” Istu said.
The Banten and West Java governors were also listed as defendants in the lawsuit as their regions were deemed to contribute to Jakarta’s air pollution. Greenpeace Indonesia obtained satellite images from July to August 2018 that showed air pollution from coal-fired power plants in Suralaya, Banten, sending their pollution to Jakarta.
In West Java, factories in Bekasi are deemed to contribute to Jakarta’s air pollution. On the other hand, it is also possible that pollution sources in Jakarta contribute to air pollution in West Java and Banten.
Executive director of the Committee for the Phasing Out of Leaded Fuel (KPBB), Ahmad Safrudin, said that a 2014 survey found that 47 percent of air pollution was from vehicle exhaust, another 22 percent was from industry and 11 percent was from stoves and combustion in restaurants and households (Kompas, 27 June 2019). Furthermore, 5 percent of air pollution was contributed by outdoor waste incineration, 4 percent from infrastructure and 4 percent from street dust.
The Jakarta Environment Agency said 75 percent of the city’s air pollution was from land transportation, 9 percent was from industry, 8 percent from the domestic sector, including waste burning, and 8 percent from other industries.
Health threat
The KPBB said that, of around 9.9 million Jakarta residents in 2016, 58.3 percent suffered from illnesses related to air pollution. The total medical cost was Rp 51.2 trillion (US$3.65 million). The KPBB cited a World Health Organization (WHO) report saying that an eighth of all global deaths in 2012 were caused by air pollution.
Jakarta Health Agency diseases control and prevention division head Dwi Oktavia said that illnesses caused by air pollution included respiratory problems such as acute respiratory tract infection (ISPA), eye irritation, diseases caused by heart and pulmonary problems, immune system disorders and cancer caused by prolonged exposure to air pollution.
The 2018 Basic Health Research shows that Jakarta has a high prevalence of asthma relapse, namely 52.7 percent. As for other diseases caused by air pollution, ISPA has a prevalence of 2.7 percent, while among children under five it is 5.4 percent, pneumonia prevalence is 2.2 percent, while among children under five it is 2 percent, and asthma prevalence is 2.6 percent.
The number of ISPA cases in Jakarta from January to March this year was higher than that in the same period last year. The city recorded 178,501 ISPA cases in January, 232,403 cases in February, 202,034 cases in March, 165,105 cases in April and 127,227 cases in May.
KOMPAS/AGUS SUSANTO
A high number of motorists cause gridlock on the Jakarta-Tangerang toll road gate in Grogol area, West Jakarta, Friday (12/7/2019). Economic losses due to congestion in Jakarta are estimated to reach Rp 100 trillion per year. The losses are caused mainly by rising fuel consumption and wasted time, which reduces work productivity.
In the same period last year, the number of ISPA cases in Jakarta was never more than 200,000 per month.
On Wednesday (31/7), AirVisual data showed that air quality in Jakarta was unhealthy (red category) during the day and unhealthy for sensitive groups including children (orange category) at 9 p.m. Jakarta’s air quality was in these two categories since Monday (29/7) and is estimated to stay the same until 6 August.
Not working alone
The Pedestrian Coalition’s Alfred Sitorus said the Jakarta administration should cooperate with those of surrounding regions to resolve this problem.
Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) deputy director Faela Sufa said that a reliable public transportation network in Jakarta would not be enough to urge people to switch from private vehicles. Policies urging less use of motored vehicles and forcing people not to use private vehicles must be combined. The construction of public transportation networks based on both trains and buses must be accelerated.
In the short term, Jakarta Transportation Council (DTKJ) head Iskandar Abubakar said he urged the government to implement the electronic road pricing (ERP) scheme, limit parking spaces and increase parking fees to limit the use of private vehicles.
KOMPAS/AGUS SUSANTO
Severe traffic congestion is seen on Jl. Gatot Subroto in South Jakarta, Tuesday (16/7/2019). A citizen lawsuit is being filed against the Jakarta administration in a community effort to remind city authorities to take action on air pollution.
Iskandar said he suggested that the operational hours of private vehicle limitation policies, such as the odd-even scheme, be extended. During the Asian Games last year, for instance, the extension of the odd-even scheme’s operational hours successfully increased traffic speed and the number of public transportation users. It also reduced vehicle exhaust emissions.(IRE/JOG/DEA/AYU/BOW/NEL)

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