Anies' Subordinates Ask DKI Residents Not To Throw Out Expired Drugs Carelessly

ILLUSTRATION/UNSPLASH

JAKARTA - The DKI Jakarta Provincial Government has asked residents of the capital city not to throw expired drugs carelessly. This is intended to prevent environmental pollution.

Jakarta Environmental Agency Public Relations official, Yogi Ikhwan, said that people can sort expired drugs at home and package them specifically in closed containers such as envelopes or plastic bags.

"After it is neatly packaged, it is marked with the words expired medicine on the container or bag," Yogi said in his statement, Friday, October 8.

Yogi said that the collection and transportation of waste will be carried out by cleaning staff. However, to make things easier, Yogi asked residents to put garbage in red sorted trash cans around their houses, roads, or in public facilities.

"The red trash can specifically accommodates household B3 waste," said Yogi.

After the volume is large, there will be special trucks that transport it to the city-level B3 TPS and then sent to the B3 processing service to be destroyed by a third party who has a permit from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

"The active role of the community in sorting out expired drug waste is needed so that the environment is healthy and not polluted," he said.

Currently, DKI is facing sea water pollution. Some time ago, it was discovered that Jakarta Bay contained paracetamol. This finding is the result of research from BRIN and the University of Brighton UK releasing the quality of sea water at several sites dominated by waste disposal.

The results of the study were published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin entitled High concentrations of paracetamol in effluent dominated waters of Jakarta Bay, Indonesia in August 2021.

The results showed that some paracetamol was detected at two sites, namely the Angke river estuary (610 ng/L) and the Ciliwung Ancol river estuary (420 ng/L), both in Jakarta Bay.

Oceanographic researcher from the National Research and Technology Agency (BRIN) Wulan Koagouw explained the reason his party chose to examine the content of paracetamol.

Departing from the fact, paracetamol is one of the drugs that are sold freely in Indonesia without the need for a doctor's prescription. Wulan said, in 2017, Jakarta was one of the cities in the world with a high level of paracetamol consumption.

"Actually, the reason is simple. So, I want to know in Indonesia, whether it was detected. I was just curious, I wanted to know whether paracetamol was detected or not, it was detected," said Wulan.