Citarum's Mounting Waste

The Citarum River is notorious for its trash and massive-scale pollution. Television reporters from other countries have flocked to Bandung, calling the longest river in West Java the dirtiest in the world. According to the Supreme Audit Agency, 10.6 million cubic meters of industrial liquid waste was dumped into the river each month in the 2009-2012 period. In these four years, the total amount of waste in Citarum equals three times the water volume in Lake Sunter, a lake of 33 hectares in size in North Jakarta, excluding the 1.23 million cubic meters of household trash per month. If stacked, the height and volume would be comparable to four and a half Sate Buildings, home of the West Java government.