This Indonesian river is considered the world's most polluted, and the textile industry is to blame.
French journalist Martin Boudot went to Indonesia, along with several scientists, to determine the cause of this pollution. His revelations, among others, have helped raise awareness. He tells Brut Nature about his investigation.
French journalist Martin Boudot went to Indonesia, along with several scientists, to determine the cause of this pollution. His revelations, among others, have helped raise awareness. He tells Brut Nature about his investigation.
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00:00The Chittarum is shared between 14 million Indonesians who use Chittarum water every
00:19day for agriculture, for pisciculture, for washing, sometimes even unfortunately also
00:24for moisturizing, and the factories, 500 textile factories that discharge their used water.
00:29The people responsible for this pollution are hiding in our closets, it's the clothes,
00:32it's our clothes, it's what we wear every day.
00:34This is waste, it's also from several industries, and the color is red, dark red, and it's still hot.
00:52What we did is that we took the data from the Indonesian Ministry of Commerce to try
00:56to recover all the textile factories that work along the Chittarum, to locate them
01:00on a map, and try to find their drainage, where they discharge their used water.
01:05And when we couldn't find them on the road, which is often the case, we used a drone.
01:10I think I found the place because there is a big pipe that discharges water.
01:15Look, look, it's there.
01:17And so we used our drone to look for the waste water, get closer, take samples
01:24of 1 litre, 1.5 litres.
01:31To produce a t-shirt, you need an average of 40 litres of water, that includes cotton production,
01:35but it also includes the process at the factory.
01:38Once the textile arrives at the factory, it is cleaned, it is colored, we use plasticizers.
01:43And then there are pesticides, because we use insecticides on the textiles,
01:47so that the mites don't nibble the t-shirts that we will eventually find in Europe.
01:53This water, as the factory progresses, will be loaded with these different chemical products,
01:58and in the end, it will be rejected.
02:00And if the treatment is not done properly, we end up with polluted water,
02:05and water that will pollute the Chittarum.
02:06We managed to convince an industrialist to open his doors to us, a company called Gistex,
02:10which is one of the largest textile producers in Indonesia.
02:13And it's true that the moment we discover the wastewater treatment facilities,
02:19I must say that we were a little surprised, because the site manager told us that
02:23for him, it was nothing more than a finger test.
02:43So we allowed ourselves to do a little sampling at the exit of his reservoir,
02:46without him knowing it, and our results showed a true pollution,
02:50quite different from what he claimed.
03:08Have you ever seen levels this high in your career?
03:11Uh, no. No, no.
03:14How many pollutants did you find in the hair of these children?
03:17There, we went up to more than 50, 54 pollutants, different on average.
03:22In the water sampling, we found a lot of nonylphenol.
03:24Nonylphenol is a rather powerful hormonal disruptor,
03:27which will disrupt the good hormonal development of humans, but also of animals.
03:32In the hair, we found industrial pollutants, such as PCB-180.
03:37We also found insecticides from the same family as sarin gas.
03:40In the rice, we found very, very high levels of lead and chromium.
03:45And for the inhabitants, it is also necessarily a problem,
03:48and it raises questions about the long-term impact.
04:04According to the people I am in contact with, there was really a before and an after.
04:08The president has announced since that the Shitarum would be clean by 2025,
04:13which seems to me to be a very, very difficult challenge to overcome, but I ask to see.
04:17He hired the army to clean the Shitarum.
04:20He multiplied the controls, the factories that polluted too much closed.
04:24And the whistleblowers I am in contact with, those who opened their doors to me,
04:27have received more funding to be able to raise awareness,
04:31much more the Indonesians and the population on site,
04:33so that finally the Shitarum becomes the most sacred river in the country
04:37and not the most polluted in the world.
04:39We are often told that our investigations are a bit dark, that they are not very hopeful.
04:43I believe that the people we meet, these whistleblowers,
04:46who fight with their little means against industries worth 10 billion euros,
04:49who spend their days on the Shitarum with a tire to denounce such or such pollution,
04:54they are hopeful, they are really light in the dark.
04:58And I am very happy that since the broadcast of our report in Indonesia,
05:02their fight has finally been recognized to its due value,
05:04that they have received a little more funding and that they can raise awareness more of the Indonesians
05:09and certainly also raise awareness of the consumers that we are,
05:12so that we keep our clothes, our closets, with a little more critical thinking.