Indonesian Environment Ministry Says Paracetamol Not Part of Water Quality Standards

Jakarta, MINA – Jakarta Bay is polluted by high concentrations of paracetamol. However, Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) said paracetamol is not part of the water quality standards.

In fact, a number of researchers say, the contamination of paracetamol on a certain scale and in the long term can harm the human body.

The Director General of Management of Waste, Garbage and Hazardous Toxic Materials at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Rosa Vivien Ratnawati, said that paracetamol is not or has not been included as part of the water quality standard because of its /emerging pollutants/ nature.

“WHO has also not included these emerging pollutants as water quality standards. WHO does not have quality standards,” said Rosa in an online press conference on Tuesday as quoted from Republika.co.id.

Citing the official UNESCO website, emerging pollutants in a broad sense can be understood as synthetic chemicals or naturally occurring chemicals or microorganisms.

They are not normally monitored or regulated in the environment, but have the potential or are suspected to have adverse effects on ecology and human health.

Rosa continued, to include determining a material to be part of the environmental quality standard, it must go through a long step. Complete data must be collected in advance within a certain time span.

“This emerging pollutant (type of paracetamol) is still being studied. If we look at this research, this is only the first research related to paracetamol, so further research is needed,” he said.

The research that Rosa is referring to is the result of a research team from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) and the University of Brighton UK. They found high concentrations of paracetamol in Jakarta Bay.

In the waters of Angke area, the paracetamol content is 610 nanograms per liter (ng/L). Meanwhile, in Ancol the concentration of paracetamol was 420 ng/L.

The concentration of paracetamol pollution in the Jakarta Bay is higher than the beaches in Brazil (34.6 ng/L) and the northern coast of Portugal (51.2 – 584 ng/L).

Meanwhile, one of the researchers in the study, Prof Zainal Arifin from BRIN, said that his team had not investigated the impact of the paracetamol content in Jakarta Bay on the human body.

However, previous studies have found that excessive concentrations of paracetamol can interfere with human DNA. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)