Flowing through Citarum River
Java, the center of the Indonesia, where Citarum River resides and has
once been called the world’s most polluted river. There are about 5 million people
who live along the Citarum river and are directly impacted by it.
“Rahmat is one of hundreds of scavengers who ply the river,
gathering plastic bottles and aluminum cans for recycling. When he came to
Bandung in the early 1970s to work at an embroidery mill, the river, he says,
ran clean and clear. As the textile industry grew, Rahmat watched the water
grow darker and dirtier by the year with wastewater from the factories. Today,
he says, he feels guilty about his old job and what the textile mills have done
to the river.” (2017)
Citarum River was
once used for industrial chemicals testing ground. Greenpeace tested the waters and found environmental contaminants
and toxic chemicals. They also investigated into PT Gistex Textiles Division -
whose parent company PT Gistex Group supplies Gap, H&M and Adidas - found
that their effluent contained an array of hazardous chemicals. “Over 200
textile factories line the river banks. The dyes and chemicals used in the
industrial process - lead, arsenic and mercury amongst them - are churned into
the water, changing its colour and lending the area an acrid odour.” (2014)
Even though only a small part of Java lives along the river,
there are still over…
30 million people
… who rely on the Citarum River for agriculture, bathing and
personal use.
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