Forty miles east of Jakarta, Indonesia, the river Citarum
runs over 186 miles
from the Wayang Mountain to the Java Sea.
The island’s largest river supports more than 30 million residents who rely on
the water source for agricultural, domestic and personal use.
However, unregulated factory growth since the area’s rapid industrialisation
in the 1980s has choked the Citarum with both human and industrial waste.
The river, now known as one of the most polluted in the world, is
unrecognisable as part of the Parahyangan region.
Over 200 textile factories line the river banks. The dyes and chemicals used
in the industrial process - lead, arsenic and mercury amongst them - are
churned into the water, changing its colour and lending the area an acrid
odour.
Plastic, packaging, and other detritus floats in the scummy water, rendering
the river’s surface invisible beneath its carpet of junk.