The Bitter Truth: Littering is a Jakarta Epidemic
Scavengers looking for plastic trash in the river. Many people of Jakarta throw garbage in the river, which lead to various diseases such as diarrhea and dengue fever. (JG Photo/ Yudhi Sukma Wijaya)
While I was hanging out with a friend at a public park a few days ago, I saw a group of teenagers having a picnic on a mat just a few meters away from me. They seemed to be having fun, talking and laughing with each other and enjoying food and bottled drinks, which they had probably bought at a nearby convenience store.
From the topics of their conversations, which I could vaguely hear from my position, I assumed these young minds were clever. But I was shocked to see what happened next.
One of them said, “Let’s go guys, we’re running late.” It was clear they needed to go somewhere quickly. What amazed me was that they left all the waste from their food and drinks right at the spot where they had been sitting.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. From the way they talked I was certain they all went to nice high schools. “Don’t they learn how to respect the environment?” I asked my friend.
It crossed my mind to walk over to them and say, “Hey, do you think this is a fast-food restaurant where you can leave your food and drinks on the table and let the waiter clean them up?” But I decided to take a deep breath and save my energy.
What frustrated me was they were educated young people who should have known better. And it wasn’t like the park didn’t have trash bins. In fact, there were several bins around the area.
On the same day, while I was driving home, I saw someone throw a big plastic bag out his car window. Since he was riding in a Mercedes Benz, I presume he had a good job and lots of money.
It’s confusing that people in Jakarta aren’t civilized when it comes to keeping the capital clean. What’s interesting is this behavior transcends all demographic groups.
The poor and the uneducated do it, but the rich and the educated do it too.
A lot of my friends complain that we don’t have enough trash containers in the city. I think we already have enough garbage facilities — just look around. And even if there is no trash bin near you, that doesn’t mean you can throw your waste anywhere you like. What you should do is keep your trash and throw it away once you find a bin.
This may sound like a simple job, but telling 10 million people to maintain Jakarta’s cleanliness is definitely not an easy task.
Perhaps you can’t blame this irresponsible behavior solely on the people. We all know how cruel this city can be.
It might be true that Jakarta is a big, wild jungle. In your small, private community, be it at school, at work or at home, it’s easy for you to behave well, but once you’re thrown into the real world of Jakarta, you suddenly turn into a completely different person.
While at home you dump garbage in the right place, you find it totally fine to do otherwise in public, simply because everybody else is doing it.
And it’s the city administration’s job to fix this problem.
Although its effectiveness has always been debatable, I think the broken windows theory, which was first introduced in the early 1980s, deserves attention from the administration.
The theory says that keeping the environment in a well-ordered condition can prevent further vandalism. According to the theory, a successful way to prevent vandalism is to fix problems when they’re small. In other words, you have to repair the broken windows as soon as possible to reduce the tendency of vandals to break more windows or do other damage. So the administration has to clean up the mess created by irresponsible people as quickly as possible to make sure that others won’t even have a chance to repeat the action.
It’s worth a try, I think, but I doubt the administration has enough of a budget to do so. The best we can do is try not to act like we own this city, because it belongs to everyone.
People won't change until it hurts. Fine them, give hefty tickets to litterer, bring them to court and punish them to do community work like cleaning up the streets for 2 weeks. Since no punishment, nothing will change.
Jakarta is just one big garbage dump, but its not alone. Just look at Bandung, the Paris of Java, its a toilet. Even Bali, a major international tourist destination with huge revenues, is also filthy.
Very few Indonesians are sensitive to littering, and seem happy to spend their lives upto their eyes in crap. Indonesia is a dirty country, and massive, nationwide education is needed to change that. Administrations need to run campaigns to make people realise that everybody has a responsibility for keeping Indonesia clean. However, if the administrations are themselves ignorant about litter, the government must lead the way. Littering needs also to be against the law and a punishable offence.
One serious problem is of course the fact that many city and town administrations do-not collect garbage effectively. We have all seen and smelt the stinking old garbage trucks with the men on top knee deep in filth; it is so primative and reminiscent of victorian London. Many authorities simply do-not see the importance of garbage management, they have other priorities.
Where I live in Bali, just four kilometres outside of Ubud, there is no garbage collection, and no facility to take it to, and then wonder why people dump their trash in river, that go down into the sea and pollute the beaches.
What puzzles me is, doesn't the President ever look out of a car window and think to himself, "God the country is filthy, I must do something about that"? Or, why does some newspaper editor who is sick of seeing shit everywhere, think to themself, "I can run a campaign to keep our streets clean"?
ya the city and country are definitely going to the dumps...sadly there is no way to fix this...
The 'leave it cleaner than you found it' philosophy which seems to be the mentality applied by visitors to parks I have visited in the US certainly doesn't seem to have taken hold here. I have to believe the attitude that there is always someone else to pick up after one, whether it is a pembantu at home, a street sweeper or a rubbish collector in a park seems to be a fundamental contributory factor to the littering issue.
I would think that the change in consumer spending power and consumer habits over the years, resulting in a massive increase in plastic bags, cups and other forms of plastic waste has been a major factor in the deterioration of the litter issue in Jakarta alluded to by Mike.Jkt in his post.
I agree with everything you wrote...I've been living here for the past 31 years and have seen Jakarta go from a pretty and clean city to just another garbage dump. It doesn't have to do with a person's status, rich or poor, educated or not, it is in the mentallity of the people here...they just don't care. Good Luck!
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@Sabrina I don't think education plays the biggest role here, certainly not unemployment. If parents instill the right values, a grown up m 7:14am | Hijab, Misunderstood Symbol of...
I spend most my adult live abroad and rarely back home to Indonesia .Reason that worth mentioning here what I remember back than non of my relative 8:17pm | Hijab, Misunderstood Symbol of...
@OVOxo: "It should NOT be the Women's responsibilities to change their clothing, but the Men to change their mindset." Oh, how I 6:36pm | Hijab, Misunderstood Symbol of...
i think we can't judge someone from what she wear or bring or believe. the problem is not about a religion but the people. 4:42pm | Hijab, Misunderstood Symbol of...
@SirAKB, well said.
