JAKARTA - The color of the brackish water running down the drain across Pak Udis’ paddy field changes everyday: it goes from blue to green or red. One only needs to take a look around to understand why. A textile factory was built a few meters away from this Indonesian peasant’s parcel. Over the las.
View of collapsed coal ash impoundment and closed power plant in North Carolina that caused the 2014 Dan river coal ash spill. Photo: U.S. environmental protection agency/Wikimedia Commons
The Indonesian government has declared coal ash is no longer a hazardous waste product, despite containing heavy metals such as mercury, lead and arsenic, in a nod to industry efforts for greater deregulation.
Fly ash and bottom ash from the burning of coal in power plants or other industrial facilities are now deemed inert or non-hazardous waste, under a new government regulation issued February 2. The regulation is a derivative of the so-called omnibus law on job creation a controversial package of deregulation measures passed by parliament last October that activists warned would serve the interests of the mining and “dirty energy” industry.