Irawaty Wardany, Nusa Dua, Bali – Indonesia lacks the intelligence capabilities to prevent the dumping of hazardous waste in the country, an environmental researcher says.
From 2004 to 2008, Indonesia's intelligence agencies managed to uncover just five cases involving the illegal importation of hazardous waste. These cases included hazardous waste and batteries from Singapore and used condoms from Germany.
"We have to admit that the abilities of our intelligence services are too weak to watch over Indonesia's large territorial waters," a senior researcher at the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law, Mas Achmad Santosa, said here Monday after a discussion on the handling of illegal transboundary hazardous waste.
The dialogue was a side event at the ninth Conference of Parties to the Basel Convention, being held in Bali from Monday to Friday.
The Basel Convention is an environmental agreement focusing on the control of the transboundary movement of hazardous waste to protect human health and the environment. The convention, signed by 170 countries, has been in force for 16 years.
Achmad said Indonesia was unlikely to realize if neighboring countries were dumping waste into its waters.
He suggested the government improve cooperation with neighboring countries, especially in information sharing and capacity building.
He also suggested bringing the hazardous waste issue to the World Trade Organization, as the Basel Convention is often considered a barrier to WTO negotiations.
The assistant deputy minister for criminal enforcement at the environment ministry, Dasrul Chaniago, said they found it difficult to stop the dumping of hazardous waste because often the companies involved had legal documents.
He cited PT Asia Pacific Eco Lestari (PT APEL), which imported more than one million tons of contaminated organic materials in 2005 from Singapore to Galang Baru Island in Batam.
"According to the documents, it was legal as it was done with an import notification letter stipulating that the bags were loaded with organic fertilizer," he said.
After conducting a laboratory analysis of the waste, authorities discovered it contained heavy metals that were categorized as hazardous composite waste. "But Singapore insisted it was not hazardous," he said.
The dispute was resolved after being brought to the Basel Convention Secretariat for mediation.
"We finally sent the waste back to its country of origin, while the Batam District Court sentenced the director of PT APEL to six months in prison and fined him Rp 150 million (US$16,186)," Dasrul said.