Jakarta –
Recently, there have been reports that drinking water in Indonesia has been contaminated with feces or E. coli bacteria. This pollution is said to increase diarrheal diseases which are the leading cause of infant mortality.
A study in a new study on the UNICEF website said nearly 70 percent of the 20,000 sources of drinking water tested in Indonesia were contaminated with faecal waste. Indeed, the Ministry of Health has stipulated that the water consumed by Indonesians must be free of E. Coli bacteria.
Causes of water pollution in Indonesia
ITB Faculty of Environmental and Civil Engineering (FTSL) water specialist Ir Rofiq Iqbal, ST, MEng said that high fecal contamination in Indonesian water was one of the triggers for the septic tank being located too close to where they lived the residents.
“The source of the septic tank is very close to the settlement. So the source of the ecoli bacteria is definitely community feces,” he said on Wednesday (12/21/2022) in a media briefing with Coway.
Large cities with poor water quality
Furthermore, Iqbal said that contamination of water, especially groundwater, often occurs in densely populated settlements. He also explained that a number of regions in Indonesia have poor water quality.
“Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, that’s right [kualitas airnya buruk],” he said.
This happens because the three areas have houses close to each other, so the risk of the water being contaminated by bacteria such as E. coli is very high. The ideal distance for a septic tank from a resident’s home is at least 10 meters from a water source. However, in dense settlements, septic tanks are located only 2-3 meters from the homes of residents.
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