Formaldehyde noodles? No thanks

The Jakarta Post, Friday Dec. 30, 2005

Jakartans have not taken kindly to the news from the Jakarta Food and Drug Office (BB-POM) that formaldehyde is being poured into foods, such as tofu, noodles and salted fish, to keep it fresher, longer.

Days after the announcement of the high content of the mortuary preservative in certain foods, tofu vendors saw a drop in sales and sidewalk eateries found customers were avoiding fried tofu and noodles.

“At first I didn’t know why people weren’t buying my tofu anymore … Really, I don’t sell tofu with formaldehyde,” a tofu vendor at Kebayoran Lama traditional market in South Jakarta told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Despite the BB-POM’s assurance that the warning did not apply to all tofu, noodles and salted fish sold at traditional markets and supermarkets, its report on the high content of formaldehyde in more than half of the samples taken from 50 markets in Greater Jakarta and Banten between November and December, has made people go to great lengths to avoid the chemicalized foods.

“Almost all traders in Bogor’s traditional markets sell salted fish treated with formaldehyde,” the Bogor Agribusiness Agency’s fishery division head Robert Hasibuan said, noting that at least 20 samples of salted fish from the markets tested positive for formaldehyde.

He has ordered traders to stop selling formaldehyde-treated fish and refuse produce from suppliers that use formaldehyde.

Huzna Zahir, an executive of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) — which exposed the same issue a decade ago — blamed the BB-POM for causing confusion by not providing clearer information

“They say tofu, but which kind? There is Chinese tofu, Sumedang tofu and Bandung tofu, and I know from producers that the last two kinds aren’t usually treated with formaldehyde,” she said.

The Association of Indonesian Food and Beverages Industries (GAPMMI) said small-scale industries were suffering due to the non-specific news reports.

“I’m certain that only a few of them use formaldehyde, yet all 950,000 small- and medium-scale food producers, who supply 70 percent of the country’s processed food needs, are taking the blame,” GAPMMI chairman Thomas Darmawan was quoted by Detik.com as saying on Wednesday.

Formaldehyde is a chemical widely used in fertilizer, plywood, industrial fungicide, and as a preservative in mortuaries and medical laboratories. Its use here to delay the decay and molding of food is due to its low price and availability.

Formaldehyde can have enormously neurodegenerative effects, including seizures, headaches, nausea, depression, convulsions and loss of vision.

Without laboratory testing, Huzna said, it was difficult to say offhand which products were formaldehyde-treated and which were safe to eat.

Separately, PD Pasar Jaya president director Prabowo Soenirman told the directors of traditional markets across the city to look out for foods containing formaldehyde in their markets.

“Currently, we await the help of officers from the BB-POM so we can ’spot the difference’,” he said.

French-based Carrefour Indonesia’s corporate affairs director Irawan D. Kadarman said that, as one of the largest retail chains in the city, it would not hesitate to cut off business contracts with suppliers who provided formaldehyde-treated foods.

“We have asked all of our suppliers to give in writing a guarantee that their products are free from illegal substances, if we find that they are not, we will of course stop dealing with them.”

Ambitious clean air bylaw lacks support provisions

The Jakarta Post, Thursday 29 December 2005

The New Year’s resolution by the Jakarta administration is to make the city breathable, but that could be too ambitious even with the issuance of Bylaw No. 2/2005 on air pollution control, which will go into effect in February.

Except for Gubernatorial Regulation No. 75/2005 supporting the bylaw’s smoking ban, no other regulation has been issued to support other aspects of the bylaw, such as the use of natural gas in all public transportation and government vehicles, as well as the control of vehicular emissions.

“We have completed a draft regulation for the use of natural gas in public transportation, however we lack support from the City Council,” Head of the Jakarta Environment Management Agency (BPLHD) Kosasih Wirahadikusumah said on Wednesday.

Looking at past experiences in trying to encourage the use natural gas, Kosasih cited the implementation of a Gubernatorial Instruction in 1992 effectively requiring taxi companies to use the alternative fuel in at least 20 percent of the cars in their fleet.

“It worked well at the time because the price difference between natural gas and gasoline was quite high. But as time went on, this difference lessened until the price of the two fuels became relatively similar,” he said, explaining that without the price edge, natural gas became too ineffective for taxi companies.

At present there are only about 500 government-owned vehicles using natural gas, Kosasih — who was a guest speaker at a press conference on Jakarta’s air quality organized by the Forum for Cleaner Emission Partnership (MEB) on Wednesday — added.

To date, only four of the 18 of the original natural gas fuel stations are still operational. These is one on Jl. Sumenep in Menteng, Central Jakarta; another in the Semanggi area of Central Jakarta; another in Tebet, South Jakarta; and on Jl. D.I. Panjaitan in Cawang, East Jakarta.

Kosasih said that it was only after the fuel price hikes on Oct. 1 that natural gas became feasible again.

“But after ignoring their gas conversion kits for more than a decade, reusing them without first servicing the kits can have disastrous results,” he said, citing the explosion of a Kosti Taxi on Dec 12.

This incident, has in turn heightened the public’s concern over the safety of using such fuel in vehicles.

“Without an intelligible explanation, there will always be public resistance towards the use of natural gas, particularly the safety aspects,” MEB program manager Firdaus Cahyadi said during the press conference.

Also during the press conference, MEB researcher Joko Sulistyono highlighted the government’s dominance over the country’s fuel industry, which unfortunately still looks down on natural gas production for fuel.

Kosasih, however, was optimistic that with the Jakarta administration’s commitment to using natural gas in buses on the new busway lines, more demand would follow and with it the industry. After that, it was a matter of time before all other public transportation companies followed suit.

“The new bylaw will possibly be implemented to force public transportation companies to install natural gas devices for all their fleets when they renew their operating licenses,” he said.

Meanwhile, experts say the easiest part to implement on Bylaw No. 2, is the requirement to regularly inspect and maintain private cars and motorcycles so that they adhere to the recommended emission standards, but that too has its problems.

Kosasih said that to date there were only 80 certified car shops in the city able to carry out emission tests, while at least 200 would be needed. And only 239 out of 600 certified technicians were currently available.

“Furthermore, there are no specific emissions standards available for two-stroke engine motorcycles,” he said.

Meanwhile, Firdaus said that the public — familiar with the bribery that goes on with the road worthiness tests for public vehicles — only view the new regulation to put private vehicles through regular inspections and maintenance as just another method of extortion.

“So unless the government repairs the road worthiness test for public vehicles, this image will remain in the public’s mind and they will, of course, resist,” he said.

Officials warn of chemicals in local food

The Jakarta Post, Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Beware of what you eat, for in that appetizing bowl of chicken noodles there may lurk chemical substances fit only for fertilizer, furniture or corpses.

Recent investigations by the Jakarta Food and Drug Office (BB-POM) found more than 60 percent of salted fish, fresh noodles and tofu sold in Greater Jakarta and Banten contained high levels of formaldehyde.

BB-POM head Atiek Harwati said on Tuesday that recent bouts of food poisoning in the country had prompted her office to investigate the formaldehyde content of food products that were usually preserved using the substance.

“Our routine investigation of food products in traditional markets and supermarkets discovered that more than 60 percent of the samples taken between November and December contained formaldehyde,” she said in a media briefing on Tuesday.

Formaldehyde at room temperature is a colorless, flammable, strong-smelling gas widely used in the production of fertilizer, paper, plywood and urea-formaldehyde resins. It is also used for industrial fungicide, germicide and disinfectant, and as a preservative in mortuaries and medical laboratories.

It is also normally present in both indoor and outdoor air at low levels. Materials containing formaldehyde can also release formaldehyde gas or vapor into the air, and it can also be released into the air by burning wood, kerosene, natural gas or cigarettes, through automobile emissions, or from natural processes.

It became widely used as a preservative in certain foods because of its cheap price, availability, and the fact that its use does not have any bearing on production.

Some of the findings include 413 parts of formaldehyde per million parts of air (ppm) in Aneka Rasa noodles, 168 ppm in Bintang Terang noodles, 80 ppm in Bintang Terang tofu, and 50 ppm in Jo’s Food noodles.

“The majority of formaldehyde-treated food products, however, are produced by small household industries without proper brand names,” Atiek said.

The BB-POM’s investigation found that fresh fish in Jakarta and dried noodles did not contain formaldehyde.

A noodle vendor in Palmerah Market in South Jakarta said he used formaldehyde so his noodles did not go off easily.

“Noodles with formaldehyde can last for a very long time. Even after immersing them in soup, all you have to do is rinse and dry them, then you can reuse them another time,” he said, adding that formaldehyde was easily bought at any chemical shop in the city.

When formaldehyde is present in the air at levels exceeding 0.1 ppm, some individuals may experience health effects such as watery eyes, a burning sensation in the eyes, nose, and throat, coughing, wheezing, nausea and skin irritation.

Excessive intake, on the other hand, could cause severe pain, vomiting, coma, and possible death.

“It can also cause heart, lung, and brain disorders, as well as effect the nervous system and kidneys,” Atiek said.

The best preservative for salted fish is, of course, salt, she said, adding that for tofu and noodles no preservatives were necessary.

Tofu with a high formaldehyde content is usually tougher than those without preservatives, while formaldehyde-treated fresh noodles are generally more oily, Atiek explained.

“So watch what you eat, choose foods that are safe for consumption, clean, and produced according to health standards,” she said.