Drilling for fertility
Sat, 02/21/2009
The Jakarta Post
We hope many of The Jakarta Post readers paid serious attention to an article which appeared on this newspaper’s Environment Page in its Feb. 17 edition. The article was very useful to any of us who would like to directly participate in the betterment of our environment.
To drill holes in the ground is useful for the purpose of making the land more fertile, of creating water catchment areas and helping dispose of organic household waste. It is very cheap to do and practically everyone can do it, but the results in creating a better environment for Jakarta and elsewhere are incredible. All we need is a simple tool to drill holes.
As responsible citizens, let us involve ourselves in the struggle to fight global warming and help the government preserve underground water. The responsibility to protect the environment should be shared by all stakeholders on this planet.
By using the hydrological cycle technique, proposed by the Bogor Institute of Agriculture researcher Kamir Raziudin Brata, we can preserve water, retain soil humidity, prevent flooding, store carbon and safely dispose of household waste.
Annual flooding, water scarcity and daily garbage collection are the three major issues in the capital, and the Jakarta government has yet to find the best way to deal with them, although they have spent large amounts of taxpayers money funding related projects.
Jakarta residents and residents elsewhere have the opportunity to participate in doing something to ease the problems, because there is a simple technology that you can apply in your respective homes – no matter how big the land.
The technique involves the use of an earth auger to drill a biophore absorption hole – a hole with a diameter of 10 centimeters and depth of 100 centimeters, which may then be filled with organic waste. The tool costs about Rp 175,000 (US$15).
Although the technology can be applied to any open space across the country, it is best used in households in urban areas like Jakarta, because biophore holes do not use much land area – unlike the well reservoirs previously introduced by the Jakarta administration.
While Jakartans cannot expect recent flood mitigation projects to work immediately, because of the delay in the construction of the East Flood Canal, the participation of all Jakartans in creating biophore holes is highly recommended due to their significant impact on flooding.
The organic waste, which is used to fill the biophore holes, will dispose of some 50 percent of solid domestic waste from each household. Thus it will help the city administration deal with the problem of waste disposal, which currently depends on the landfill site in Bekasi in West Java.
It is time for all Jakarta residents to drill biophore holes in their homes and surrounding areas for their own good. We also call on the Jakarta administration, as well as the central government, to set a good example by creating as many biophore holes as possible in office yards, gardens, parks as a city campaign to address the three major problems.
Let’s just start drilling now to preserve our land’s fertility and to help the environment.Drilling for fertility
Jakarta Post, Indonesia
