Indonesia's Environmental Negligence
"They start the burning early in the morning and go until evening."
"It happens every day and the smoke is always in the air. For me, it's difficult to breathe."
Karnawi, 84, Tropodo, Indonesia
"These stark findings illustrate the dangers of plastics for human health and should move policymakers to ban plastic waste combustion, address environmental contamination, and rigorously control imports."
Lee Bell, adviser, International Pollutants Elimination Network
"There are many tofu makers here and most of them do not care."
"The tofu makers only count the profit, profit, profit."
Ismail, 50, former mayor of Tropodo
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| At tofu factories, plastic is burned as fuel |
A village of five thousand people, Tropodo was found to harbour high levels of several hazardous chemicals including dioxin -- known to cause cancer, birth defects and Parkinson's disease -- according to a recently released report written by an alliance of Indonesian and international environmental groups. They point the finger of blame at the level of dioxin found in the village as an end product in a chain of malfeasance, carelessness and government neglect.
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| Mila Damila says her granddaughters' health has been badly affected |
The smell of burning plastic pollutes the very air where patches of black ash cover the ground as black smoke billows from towering smokestacks in the village. Over 30 commercial kitchens in Tropodo located on the eastern side of Indonesia's main island of Java, fuel their tofu production through the burning of a mixture of paper and plastic waste. In these kitchens much of the area's tofu is produced.
An egg laid by one of Mr. Karnawi's chickens where he lives close by seven of the plastic-burning kitchens tested out with one of the highest levels of dioxin contamination ever recorded in Asia. One such egg from Mr. Karnawi's henhouse would exceed the European Food Safety Authority dioxin standard by 70-fold, for an adult. The waste produced in the West tends to be sent abroad, including to Indonesia.
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| Researcher Yuyun Ismawati found recyclable plastics among the waste set to be burned |
That waste is combined with local waste for processing. Not to be processed into new consumer goods, but to be tossed into furnaces to fuel Tropodo's tofu boilers. Indonesia's president Joko Widodo has neglected health concerns in favour of economic development and environmentalists have urged him to address the urgent issue of toxic contamination, inclusive of air pollution and mercury contamination.
The Environment Ministry's director general for waste management visited Tropodo in July, acknowledging plastic burning was hazardous, but making no effort to put a stop to it. She would, she said, investigate how the toxic smoke could be controlled. Perhaps predictably, given its preferred priorities, the government has done nothing since.
Leaving Tropodo's residents to stifle in the stench of burning plastic but worse, ingest it, breathe it into their lungs where it leads to lethal health problems. The former mayor, a tofu producer himself, had banned the use of plastic as fuel in 2014, a prohibition that lasted several months before the burning of plastic was resumed.
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| Villagers sort through plastic in Bangun for the better-quality material they can sell |
Labels: Dioxin, Health, Indonesia, Plastic Waste, Pollution, Tofu
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, December 17, 2019
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