In February 2018, the President of Indonesia Joko Widodo launched a seven-year plan to clean up the whole river to achieve clean drinking-water status, ordering 7,000 regular soldiers to clean up allocated sections of the river on a regular basis. They have powers to block up outlets conveying polluted wastewater from factories into the river and are installing rubbish treatment and water treatment facilities. Problems are - lack of money for continuing action, lack of coordination at local level, bribes paid by factories to avoid change, and upstream soil erosion from deforestation that enhances the silting of the lower river. But with wider internet publicity, and now the top-down government enforcement, more foreign consultants are coming in to recommend necessary changes upstream, and local awareness and anti-plastics campaigns are beginning to take effect.
