Nearly all the stores along Jalan Pramuka, Rawalumbu, Bekasi, West Java, have the same way of offering their wares. Buyers who come looking for steel for reinforced concrete will be offered two options: full iron or faux iron. Full iron refers to concrete iron which complies with the Indonesian National Standards (SNI), whereas faux iron has no standard sizes.

Tempo discovered, for example, a faux iron of supposedly eight millimeters actually ha