Member of Commission IX of the DPR Suggests the Government Conduct Mapping for Handling Air Pollution in Indonesia

JAKARTA - Member of Commission IX of the House of Representatives (DPR) Saleh Partaonan Daulay suggested that the government conduct a mapping to find out which areas have high levels of pollution as one of the short-term management efforts.

According to him, the current high level of air pollution is not only in Jakarta, but has spread to various parts of Indonesia.

"So, you can't just focus on Jakarta. Because it can't be partial, the handling must be thorough and good," said Saleh by telephone in Jakarta, Thursday, August 17.

According to him, based on the air monitoring site IQAir, Tuesday, August 16, the order of the most polluted cities/regencies is West Kalimantan, the level of Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 is 191 ug/m3, then South Tangerang (156 ug/m3), City of Serang ( 150 ug/m3), Tangerang City (134 ug/m3), Jambi (119 ug/m3), Bandung (111 ug/m3) and seventh place for Jakarta City (109 ug/m3).

Saleh said there were many factors causing high pollution in various regions, including transportation, power plants, industrial activities, and the El Nino phenomenon.

West Kalimantan, which has a small population of motorized vehicles, turns out to have the highest level of pollution in Indonesia. For this reason, as a member of the commission in charge of health, his party asked the government to carry out a comprehensive evaluation and establish appropriate policies, both for the short and long term.

"This air pollution has an impact on society. Now the number of flu sufferers is very high. That's why you can't take it lightly," he said.

The government, he continued, must take anticipatory steps against every factor that contributes to this high air pollution throughout Indonesia.

He added that the causes of pollution in each region may be different, so the solution approach must be adapted to the conditions of each region, for example West Kalimantan, where the population of motorized vehicles is small, but the mining activity is very high and the electricity supply is from coal (PLTU), of course the solution is different from Jakarta.

Previously, Professor of Meteorology and Climatology at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Edvin Aldrian revealed that one of the causes of increasingly dense air pollution recently was related to the El Nino phenomenon.

"That's true (it has something to do with El Nino). So, it's usually because it's related to forest fires," he said.

This condition, according to Edvin, is exacerbated by the infrequent rain in an area so there is no wet deposition or an important process of removing gases and particles from the atmosphere, so there are lots of pollutants in the air.