Increasing Awareness to Fight Water Pollution

         This is my essay that had made me pass through the first selection stage which was before the interview stage of Asia Youth Leaders 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand without costing rupiah. :))

         I just want to share and hope readers can get a lot of information from this essay or maybe you can learn about how to organize essay from this one. i want to give you a clue of an outstanding essay is that you need to be well-organized. If you can see most of my writing contain of the opening paragraph (the issue or case introduction), the topic explanation paragraph(s) (it can be one or more paragraphs), and the closing paragraph (linking back to the first paragraph).

or, maybe it can contain 5 paragraphs which each of paragraph answer the 5w+1h (What, when, where, why, who) (How). The main idea of creating essay is that well-organized. You may write down a draft before starting to write or type your essay.
         Actually, what I understand about writing is there is no ending in learning how to write, there is no wrong or right in writing cause every soul has its own style in writing but in general formal and informal writing should be structured so readers can easily read the writing.

The most important that you have a willingness to learn and study how to have good writing.

* if you want more detail about essay structure, click this Read the essay that got a high-school senior into 7 Ivy League schools or Writing Your Essay by UNSW or Essay Structure by Harvard University 

That's all my suggestions, happy reading all!

Increasing Awareness to Fight Water Pollution

“Poor sanitation and hygiene cause 50,000 deaths annually in Indonesia, with untreated sewage resulting in over six million tons of human waste being released into inland water bodies, according to an ongoing study by the World Bank”. That is the fact that must be faced by the Indonesian government. Government is not the only one to be blamed because the society itself does not have the willingness to follow the law that has been made by the government. It is proved by the fact “Since the late 1960s, the government has addressed increasing environmental problems by establishing resource-management programs, conducting environmental impact analyses, developing better policy enforcement, and enacting appropriate laws to give government officials proper authority.” Unfortunately, the legal uncertainties about departmental jurisdictions have slowed progress against environmental degradation and this gap is being used by some people to ruin the environment for their own advantages. One of the main problems of what causes water pollution occurs in Indonesia is because of lack of awareness. Then, industrial wastes and sewage that are produced by industrial activities such as household, small scale industries, agriculture, textile, pulp and paper, petrochemical, mining, and oil and gas dispose directly to the river without any treatments and sanitations. The result of water quality monitoring in 30 rivers in Indonesia has shown that most of the river water quality do not meet water criteria class 1 (drinking water law based on Regulation 82/2001). On the basis of parameter BOD, there is only 21 percent of samples meet the water criteria class 1. In another word most of river BOD is above 10 ppm, in fact, concentration of BOD could reach 100 ppm. Water pollution is a serious problem in Indonesia.

Stakeholders that are involved in water pollution problems are governments, company or industrial factories, and communities. The government should be the regulator and supervisor. The role of government to create a better environment is huge. In the 2009-2015 was intended to have a transition from predominantly centrally-funded to predominantly locally funded water infrastructure programs. Within this period the government of Indonesia set goal by 2015, Indonesia already reaches the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for increasing access to a sustainable source of safe water by undertaking the largest investment in water supply in the last 20 years. But in 2011, the progress of the water supply investments still remains the same. Even the previous program has been more successful where government-stimulated community-based programs continue to proliferate and reach more beneficiaries. Some obstacles occur during the water sector development such as a lack of local government sense of ownership and good governance, low level of access to water on a normal basis, lack of inter-departmental coordination, weak PDAM management, and limited availability and increased pollution of water resources. For example, contractors who build rural water systems are answerable to government agencies, rather than to the users of services.The management structures and responsibilities for maintenance are weak but there are some improvements in the coordination with the establishment of a working group called Pokja AMPL at national, provincial and district levels on drinking water and environmental sanitation. The government only regulates 264 chemicals, out of the 100,000 that are used in the global textile industry and to which 1,500 are added every year. This makes the company using the dangerous chemicals without any fear being arrested. One of the most contaminated rivers in Indonesia is Citarum.Since the 1970s more than 800 textile factories have set up in and around Majalaya.Even there are 45 industrial chemicals banned under Indonesian law, it is an open secret that inspectors can be paid to look the other way. Thus, only 14 companies have ever received administrative or criminal sanctions for contamination of the Citarum. It proves that the lack of government’s supervision leads to disobey the policy. The government needs to improve their performance to support their program which is improving the water supply and sanitations.

Near to rivers, there are so many companies. It is related to their waste water. Water supply in terms of quality and quantity do not suit yet with the standard. For example, water quality in a location near mining area potentially contaminated by the heavy metal such as mercury (Hg). Monitoring data show that some level of mercury (Hg) concentration has been detected at nine sampling point from 16 sampling point with the highest level of dissolved mercury in one of mining area could reach 2.78 ugs/l. Actually, the role of company is really important to support the environmental rehabilitation program. The roles are preventing and controlling pollution to environment, monitoring and reporting, provide information/report that correct, accurate, and right, and manage, recover and rehabilitate pollution of environment.By having law and awareness among the companies, environment degradation could be prevented. The damage that’s created by the companies would go back to them again in years later. If they have already contaminated the rivers water without thinking that the further effect is such as lack of water supply and scarcity. Then, if the lack of clean water occurs, it means the demand of clean water is increasing but the quantity is limited, the result is the price of the water is increasing significantly. If the raw material is expensive, it means the cost productive will increase also and people can afford to buy the products that they are produced, so it leads to bankrupt of its companies or the worst case is scarcity. Every businessman or businesswoman do not want this thing happen, because they want the sustainable of their companies and then they can look after the environment just like they want their companies to.

Due to the increasing of the fertility in Indonesia, the needs of water supply is increasing also. The basichuman needs for water is bathing, washing clothes and dishes, and drinking. But in fact is 80 percent of 250 millions Indonesian has no access to piped water. They are who live in the low income area have difficulties to access the clean water. From this phase, people start using river’s water to fulfill their needs of water.Health impact of inadequate of waters supply and sanitations lead to some diseases. 2/3 of the human body is made up of water. If toxins are allowed to build up in your water, the water within your system gets ‘dirty’. When this happens, your body will be infected to various diseases, especially cancer. Unclean drinking water is also the major cause of diarrhea and if it is being consumed every day constantly, it will lead to mortality and child malnutrition. Every 20 seconds, a child dies because of water-related disease. Lack of sanitation is the major agent of these deaths. Children are vulnerable to certain diseases because their new immune systems aren't adequately developed to combat the bacteria, viruses, and parasites that cause these infections. For example, fifteen million people remain directly reliant on the Citarum (a river in West Java) for drinking and bathing water. They are suffered from skin irritation, itching, chronic dermatitis and also respiratory problems. Many children die in the early age before they reach 5. Moreover, poor families are usually less educated and they tend to have poor hygiene practices which lead to spreading the disease.One study in 2000 calculated that child mortality rates up to five times higher in Jabodetabek’s poor peri urban sub district than Jakarta city center. This could give bad impact to government because years later, there will be lack of young generations while labor is needed in running a country. It is impossible to make the older stay running the country. There must be regeneration. The worst case that will happen at the end of the day is our country will be controlled by foreigners.

Water pollution is not a small problem because it is only occurred in low income area, but things are going  worse  years by years and soon people who live in high residential in urban area will feel the effect of their lack of awareness today. The socialization by the government about the law and regulations regarding to water polluted by waste water of industrial activities must be clear. Creating high awareness about the damage of polluting the environment is important. Basically, environment is the place whereevery human beinglive and if it is polluted, those who will get the effect is human and the other creatures. The environment that we live now is not only for us, we must make sure that our grand children can still live comfortable in this environment. Special treatments should be addressed to the areas that have been contaminated as soon as possible. Maybe it cannot be easy and fast to fix the environment that have been polluted by years but we can start it now by not throwing garbage to the water channel, make good sanitations, and spread the message to safe our next generations by not polluting the environment.