Four Indonesian provinces have high marine water quality: ministry

Four Indonesian provinces have high marine water quality: ministry.

Tangerang, Banten - There are four provinces in Indonesia that have high marine water quality, according to director of coastal and marine damage and pollution control at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Dasrul Chaniago.

"We control the marine water quality by calculating the national index for the 2020–2021 period, and the result is that there are four provinces with high water quality," he informed after attending the 2022 PEMSEA Network of Local Governments (PNLG) event here on Thursday.

The four provinces are Bali, Banten, Yogyakarta, and Central Java, he said.

Further, 4 of the 34 provinces in Indonesia do not meet the national quality index of 59 points, namely Papua, Riau Islands, Aceh, and Southeast Sulawesi, he added.

According to Chaniago, in terms of the volume of waste in the sea in the 2017–2021 period, North Sulawesi was the province with the highest contribution, namely around 600 thousand kilograms per square meter.

Meanwhile, North Sumatra recorded the lowest amount of waste in the sea of below 100 thousand kilograms per square meter.

"The sea waste consists 44 percent of plastic, 12 percent of garments, 15 percent of glass and ceramics, 9 percent of rubber, 10 percent of other materials, and 3 percent of wood," he expounded.

The Indonesian government aims to reduce 70 percent of plastic waste entering the sea by 2025.

Earlier, deputy for coordination of environmental and forestry management at the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Nani Hendiarti, informed that research conducted by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) found that the amount of plastic waste entering the sea ranges from 0.27 to 0.59 million tons per year.

“Now, for handling plastic waste, Indonesia has set an ambitious target, which is to reduce (plastic) waste that enters the sea by 70 percent by 2025. That target is stated in the action plan from Presidential Decree Number 83 of 2018. Thus, we have three years to implement it," she said on Wednesday.

Oleh : Azmi Syamsul, Raka Adji

Editor : Yakop