Trash Trash Trash...everywhere around Jakarta

 I took this photo in Manado beach (2010 October)

 on the way to go to my house

Whenever I look unconsciously at sidewalks, streets or rivers in Jakarta, I have seen this kind of thrown-trash in the road continuously. Until last week, I didn’t know where our trash goes as well as didn’t care what happens to them. Around last week or so, my geography class had to read several articles about serious problems these days in Jakarta. When I got to the point where it explains about the over load of trash, I was extremely shock with the statement, which says “Jakarta wastes Rp 8,000 billion per year on trash” and “More than 22.5million tons of garbage are generated in Indonesia every year”. As I further researched about the trash in Jakarta, according to Environment and development in coastal regions and in small islands, trash pickers, the local government and community are collecting 83% of the garbage produced in Jakarta. But the reminder of 17% is just dumped into the river, due to their lack of education. Moreover, all the trash are just dump into the open place, which led to lack of fresh water for future, health issues and negative affects to the species that use the sea floor or river as their place of home. It led up to health issues, because as amount of dumping trash goes up, pollution gets worse, which affects our health; low-class people are using the river as their source of water: showering, cleaning dishes as well as laundering, as people just dump their trash into the river, river will contaminate and led to awful disease to river-water users.

Jakarta International School's trash bin

In Jakarta International School, we have a unique trash bin, which is divided into 3 sections: general, metal/glass & plastic, and organic. It is true that we cannot stop the overload trash problem immediately, however by recycling, we definitely can decrease/prevent the amount of unknown problems that we’re getting in the future. Recycling helps sustain the environment for future generations, prevents pollution caused by the manufacturing of products of virgin materials, and reduces the need for landfilling and open spaces and many more positive effects. So…let’s start recycling! :)

Serious traffic in Jakarta

Pondok Indah

JL. Pakubuwono

Countless people are coming to Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, where people are able to encounter to numerous entertainment as well as business; led up to overcrowded city. Moreover, the overcrowding has brought lots of serious problems; among them, traffic is one of the major problems in Jakarta. Traffic is happening almost everywhere. Due to public transport in Indonesia seems dangerous and dirty, those who have personal cars would rather use their own, than placing themselves in an overcrowded, unsafe bus. About a month ago, during Diigo time, I remember reading an article in the Jakarta Post. The article was about Jakarta’s awful traffic and pollution, which cause discontinuation of tourists from coming to Jakarta. These days, tourists choose to rather go to Bali, Yogjakarta or Sumatra. Furthermore, lots of businesses decided to begin in Bali, because more tourists are willing to visit Bali than Jakarta, where contains terrible traffic jam.

I cannot state that the government didn’t work on anything to solve a problem of traffic, because several years ago, they came up with three-in-one policy in order to limit the amount of cars on the road. Unfortunately, the new policy didn’t solve the problem well, because there was an illegal-paid- passenger, who was paid to meet the minimum amount of people in one car.

bus way

         Since last year, bus ways have been created in lots of different area in Jakarta. I believe bus ways are making the traffic jam worse than before, because those bus ways are for buses which go farer from place to place, not for local-Indonesia buses like Kopaja etc; bus way took one whole row out of 3 rows in a road. Due to not many buses are passing through the bus way, but only few of them per day, often I observed a situation of having serious traffic jam, while none of buses are on the bus way. For example, in Korea, we do have a bus way for both local and going far buses (they share the same line). However, due to they didn’t block the line between bus way and normal car way, other cars are allow to use a bus way when there aren’t any buses around them. 

countless houses are being destroyed

image 1) JL. pakubuwono

image 2) JL.Pakubuwono

I lived in Jakarta, Indonesia for 16 years of my life; for about 10/16 years, I was living in either house, first or second floor of an apartment. Since I began living in 22 floor of an apartment 6 years ago, from the top, I have begun to see lots of buildings being built and countless houses being destroyed. Jakarta is experiencing urbanization, a movement of people moving from rural areas to urban areas, because of several different reasons: mainly for better-paid jobs, education and shelter. Due to rural areas people do not have enough money to live in an apartment or well-built house, those people mostly likely to live in these small orange-reddish roof house. As more rural people come to Jakarta, the amount of shanty houses increases, which led to nonexistence of free land area. Unfortunately, as more and more apartments, buildings as well as department stores are being built in order to develop Jakarta, often those houses’ residents are forced to leave with little amount of money given by the government. As you can see in the image 1, there is a tall building, which surrounded by small houses. I still remember that about 2 years ago, there were countless houses. Furthermore, image 2 is now happening right next to my apartment building. Less than 5 months ago, numerous houses also surrounded this area, but now I cannot find any houses in this area. One of my drivers was living in this image 2 area for more than 20 years of his life with his 5 members of family. Due to the government’s order, not only his family but also countless number of other families had to leave their beloved town to another place. He once told my parents that although he got money by leaving this area, he rather wants to stay here, because more money are needed to move and search for new house. I believe, in order to somehow improve this terrible situation of getting rid of all shanty houses at once, the government should provide them with enough money for people to move to other places.

countless houses are being destroyed

image 1) JL. pakubuwono

image 2) JL.pakubuwono

I lived in Jakarta, Indonesia for 16 years of my life; for about 10/16 years, I was living in either house, first or second floor of an apartment. Since I began living in 22 floor of an apartment 6 years ago, from the top, I have begun to see lots of buildings being built and countless houses being destroyed. Jakarta is experiencing urbanization, a movement of people moving from rural areas to urban areas, because of several different reasons: mainly for better-paid jobs, education and shelter. Due to rural areas people do not have enough money to live in an apartment or well-built house, those people mostly likely to live in these small orange-reddish roof house. As more rural people come to Jakarta, the amount of shanty houses increases, which led to nonexistence of free land area. Unfortunately, as more and more apartments, buildings as well as department stores are being built in order to develop Jakarta, often those houses’ residents are forced to leave with little amount of money given by the government.

As you can see in the image 1, there is a tall building, which surrounded by small houses. I still remember that about 2 years ago, there were countless houses. Furthermore, image 2 is now happening right next to my apartment building. Less than 5 months ago, numerous houses also surrounded this area, but now I cannot find any houses in this area. One of my drivers was living in this image 2 area for more than 20 years of his life with his 5 members of family. Due to the government’s order, not only his family but also countless number of other families had to leave their beloved town to another place. He once told my parents that although he got money by leaving this area, he rather wants to stay here, because more money are needed to move and search for new house. 

I believe, in order to somehow improve this terrible situation of getting rid of all shanty houses at once, the government should provide them with enough money for people to move to other places.