Jakarta is notorious for the poor quality of its air, but not all of the city is that bad compared to the rest of the country, a new survey has found.
A car drives through a cloud of smoke from burning piles of garbage in Pluit, Jakarta. While West Jakarta predictably enough ranked last on an Environment Ministry clean air survey of 14 municipalities, East Jakarta ranked third. (JG Photo/ Afriadi Hikmal)
While West Jakarta predictably enough ranked last on an Environment Ministry clean air survey of 14 municipalities, East Jakarta ranked third. The other parts of the capital were in the midst of the rankings: North Jakarta had the fifth cleanest air, Central Jakarta came eighth and South Jakarta ninth.
Environment Minister Balthasar Kambuaya said that topping the national list with the least polluted air was Surabaya in East Java, receiving 7.21 on a scale of 0 to 10, followed by Medan in North Sumatra on 6.72 and East Jakarta on 6.67.
While West Jakarta predictably enough ranked last on an Environment Ministry clean air survey of 14 municipalities, East Jakarta ranked third. The other parts of the capital were in the midst of the rankings: North Jakarta had the fifth cleanest air, Central Jakarta came eighth and South Jakarta ninth.
Environment Minister Balthasar Kambuaya said that topping the national list with the least polluted air was Surabaya in East Java, receiving 7.21 on a scale of 0 to 10, followed by Medan in North Sumatra on 6.72 and East Jakarta on 6.67.
Balthasar said the three cities had been able to push down fuel consumption and reduce gas emissions.
“The results of the survey showed that all cities in Indonesia did not meet standards and the effect on health is substantial,” Balthasar said, adding that the main cause of pollution in big cities was vehicles.
“We hope that in the coming year, cities that obtained not-so-good results really work to improve their air quality,” he said.
The ministry he said, was undertaking the “Blue Sky Program,” which is aimed at improving the quality of urban air, with a particular focus on pollution coming from vehicles.
Karliansyah, who heads the ministry’s Environmental Pollution Control department, said that to determine the air quality in East Jakarta, physical and non-physical examinations were conducted.
These included testing the emissions from 500 vehicles for three days in a row and monitoring air quality on main highways, traffic loads and vehicle density. Efforts undertaken by the local government to improve air quality were also considered.
“From the assessment, East Jakarta was seen as being able to reach quite good results,” Karliansyah said.
The survey was conducted from March to September.
“In Central Jakarta, traffic jams are so bad in Jalans Sudirman and Thamrin that the vehicle emissions are causing high pollution,” Karliansyah said. “Meanwhile, too many flyover projects in South Jakarta are causing traffic congestion as well as making it dirty.”
Outside of Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan, the survey also covered Semarang in Central Java, Bandung, Depok and Bekasi in West Java, Tangerang in Banten, Makassar in South Sulawesi, and Palembang in South Sumatra.
Assessments were also made for large municipalities, covering Solo, Batam, Malang, Balikpapan, Bogor, Yogyakarta, Bandar Lampung, Denpasar, Samarinda, Banjarmasin, Padang and Pekanbaru.
For the large municipality category, Solo, in Central Java, topped the list with 8.42, followed by Batam, in Riau Islands, with 8.31 and Malang, in East Java, with 7.53.
