DPI for Improved Public Service: Lessons from Indonesia’s Integrated Smart System Platform
Okyza Maherdy Prabowo, Suhono Harso Supangkat, Arry Akhmad Arman, Policy Brief
Pollution, contaminated air, water and soil, is responsible for 9 million premature deaths globally each year (one in six deaths). About 50 percent of this mortality falls in Group of 20 (G20) members. Transboundary pollution, particularly air pollution and heavy metal contamination, threatens global health, and adversely impacts climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem health. As part of a One Health approach, and aiming to build back better post-COVID-19, G20 members should 1) reduce fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations by 25 percent by 2030, 2) prevent and mitigate exposure to two major transboundary pollutants: lead and mercury, and 3) promote sustainable agricultural practices that ensure safe, toxic-free food.
Pollution, contaminated air, water and soil, is responsible for 9 million premature deaths globally each year (one in six deaths)1. About 50 percent of this burden of mortality occurs in Group of 20 (G20) countries2. A significant amount of pollution is transboundary. G20 members both contribute to and are affected by transboundary pollution.3
Pollution moves across borders through two of the largest, most influential systems in the world: the global ecosystem and the global trade system. Disease-causing toxic substances involved in industrialisation, agriculture, household burning of biomass for cooking or the burning of garbage do not stay where they are generated. They circulate the globe through the earth’s atmosphere and oceanic systems. Heavy metals also bioaccumulate up the food chain and are transported across borders through international trade.4
Air pollution is the most visible and well-documented form of transboundary pollution. Global air currents transport air pollution across continents and oceans at alarming rates, such that in early April 2022, the World Health Organisation (WHO) stated that 99 percent of people globally breath polluted air – up from 91 percent just two years ago.5 Between 3.5 million and 6 million deaths every year have been linked to outdoor air pollution.6 About 20 percent of those deaths result from air polluted while making goods in one location that are sold in other countries.7 While wealthy countries in Europe and North America have done reasonably well in tackling domestic sources of air pollution in recent decades, air quality across Asia and other parts of the world has become much worse. This affects not only countries where the air is badly polluted but also those farther afield. Global winds transport air pollution from East Asia to North America, from North America to Europe, and from Europe to the Arctic and Central Asia.8 Data visualisations from NASA illustrate how PM2.5 particles travel around the world and several scientific publications now document origins of air pollution.9 For example, a recent European Union study found that significant portion of air pollution exposure in Europe originates from non-European sources.10 Similarly, air pollution in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand has been linked to Illegal burning of peatlands, forests and agricultural land in Indonesia.11
Another well-recognised transboundary pollution problem is mercury – such that there is a internationally legally binding convention on the issue. Methylmercury is particularly problematic. This highly toxic form of the element bioaccumulates up the food chain, especially in large pelagic species. Methylmercury causes permanent neurological damage in foetuses, along with cognitive impairment and developmental disabilities in children. A landmark 2019 study by the United States Geological Survey documented the process by which increased mercury emissions from human sources across the globe, in particular Asia, pollute the rich North Pacific Ocean feeding grounds for tuna and other marine life.12 According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the largest single source of mercury contamination is small-scale gold mining, where the element is used to extract gold from crushed ore.13 A close second is coal-fired power plants.
But there are other, less visible and less well-known transboundary pollutants. Used vehicles, many at end-of-life or not meeting air quality standards, and lead scrap are exported to low- and middle-income countries and contribute to ambient air pollution and unsound recycling and production of lead acid batteries.14 According to UNEP, the EU, Japan and USA are the three largest exporters of used vehicles, which are destined primarily for Africa, Asia, Central America and the Middle East.15 Many of these vehicles do not meet exporting country emission standards or have valid roadworthy certificates.16
Lead, another well-known neurotoxin is particularly alarming, especially because it causes permanent brain damage, among other health impacts. According to the WHO, there is no safe level of lead exposure. Today one in three children is lead poisoned (800 million children)17. Further, this toxicant causes 900,000 premature deaths each year.18
In the global economic system, food products are often an amalgam of ingredients originating in multiple countries. Contamination can happen anywhere along the production process. Produce can be tainted by unsafe farming practices (e.g. using polluted water for irrigation) in the exporting country.19 It may occur at the processing and packaging stage, with product adulteration, plastic packaging and ink leaching cadmium, lead and endocrine-disruptors into food. A 2021 US Congressional report showed alarming levels of heavy metals in well-known baby food brands,20 while arsenic has been found in Chinese and Indian rice21, and lead in spices imported into the US from India.22
Agricultural imports and exports are a multibillion-dollar industry. Only a tiny fraction of imported food or products can be tested. Rejections of contaminated products from overseas can cause significant economic losses to both the importing and exporting countries.
G20 members should focus attention, funding and resources on addressing transboundary pollutants within their own borders, and assist low- and middle-income countries to reduce and control their pollution problems. It is in their interest to do so because:
Given the complexity of the planet’s natural systems and the extent of global trade, intricate supply chains and manufacturing processes, there can be no single approach or solution to transboundary pollution. Nor can pollution imported through food products be checked by relying on increasing regulations and inspections or by imposing tariffs. The only rational and effective way to deal with transboundary pollution is to identify problems at their source, and prevent pollution in the first place. Failure to address pollution at source means pollution will continue causing death and disability and threaten global food safety and security.23 Addressing pollution at source is the most reasonable strategy for success, and it has the additional merit of tackling transboundary pollution in ways that also deal with domestic pollution with co-benefits for climate change and biodiversity conservation.
The good news is that many of the technical solutions to the principal pollution problems, both transboundary and domestic, are known. These are summarised below:
To address these myriad sources of transboundary pollution, a multi-pronged approach is required that can be encapsulated in specific commitments by G20 members. Accordingly, it is proposed that G20 leaders embrace the priority of pollution, the One Health approach, and the strategy and solutions recommended here, and minimise transboundary pollution by committing to:
More specifically, a multi-pronged approach could comprise the following components 25:
1 Landrigan, Philip J., Richard Fuller, Nereus J.R. Acosta, Olusoji Adeyi, Robert Arnold, Niladri Nil Basu,
2 Abdoulaye Bibi Baldé, et al. 2018. “The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health.” The Lancet 391, no. 10119: 462-512. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(17)32345-0.; Fuller, Richard, Karti Sandilya, and David Hanrahan. 2019. Pollution and Health Metrics: Global, Regional, and Country Analysis. Global Alliance on Health and Pollution. https://gahp.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/PollutionandHealthMetrics-final-12_18_2019.pdf 2 Landrigan, Philip J., Richard Fuller, Nereus J.R. Acosta, Olusoji Adeyi, Robert Arnold, Niladri Nil Basu, Abdoulaye Bibi Baldé, et al. 2018. “The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health.” The Lancet 391, no.
3 10119: 462-512. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(17)32345-0.; Fuller, Richard, Karti Sandilya, and David Hanrahan. 2019. Pollution and Health Metrics: Global, Regional, and Country Analysis. Global Alliance on Health and Pollution. https://gahp.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/PollutionandHealthMetrics-final-12_18_2019.pdf 3 Pollution Knows No Borders. White Paper. Pure Earth and Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP). 2019 https://www.pureearth.org/pollution-knows-no-borders/
4 Pollution Knows No Borders. White Paper. Pure Earth and Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP). 2019 https://www.pureearth.org/pollution-knows-no-borders/
5 World Health Organ isation (2022). Global Health Observatory. Available at: https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/theme-details/GHO/air-pollution#:~:text=Almost%0all%20of%20the%20global,pulmonary%20disease%2C%20cancer%20and%20pneumonia.
6 Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). (2019). Global Burden of Disease. Available at: http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool.
7 Zhang Q, Jiang X, Tong D, Davis SJ, Zhao H, Geng G, et al. Transboundary health impacts of transported global air pollution and international trade. Nature. 2017;543(7647):705–9.
8 Dentener, F., Keating, T., Akimoto, H., Pirrone, N., Dutchak, S., Zuber, A., Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, United Nations, & UNECE Task Force on Emission Inventories and Projections (Eds.).Hemispheric transport of air pollution 2010: Prepared by the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution acting within the framework of the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution.
9 Carnegie Mellon University CREATE Lab. (2022). Earth Time. Available at: https://earthtime.org/stories/transboundary#waypoints=1aapzRyrnBeBzTTa99rZBtcetiev3mUjL4hn2v5m8ok w.1596808134
10 Travnikov O, Batrakova N, Gusev A, Ilyain I, Kleimenov M, Rozovskaya O,et al. Assessment of transboundary pollution by toxic substances: Heavy metals and POPs (EMEP Status Report 2/2020). Brussels: European Commission, 2020. https://www.nilu.com/pub/1821637/
11 Koplitz, S. N., Mickley, L. J., Marlier, M. E., Buonocore, J. J., Kim, P. S., Liu, T., … & Myers, S. S. (2016). Public health impacts of the severe haze in Equatorial Asia in September–October 2015: demonstration of a new framework for informing fire management strategies to reduce downwind smoke exposure. Environmental Research Letters, 11(9), 094023
12 Pollution Knows No Borders. White Paper. Pure Earth and Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP). 2019 https://www.pureearth.org/pollution-knows-no-borders/
13 Esdaile LJ, Chalker JM. The Mercury Problem in Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining. Chemistry. 2018;24(27):6905-6916. doi:10.1002/chem.201704840; Reducing Mercury in Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (ASGM), United Nations Environment Programme. Accessed 10 October 2017 from http://web.unep.org/chemicalsandwaste/global-mercury-partnership/reducing-mercury-artisanal-and-small- scale-gold-mining-asgm;
14 UN Environment Program. Used Vehicles in the Environment. 2020. https://www.unep.org/resources/report/global-trade-used-vehicles-report 15 UN Environment Program. Used Vehicles in the Environment. 2020. https://www.unep.org/resources/report/global-trade-used-vehicles-report 16 UN Environment Program. Used Vehicles in the Environment. 2020. https://www.unep.org/resources/report/global-trade-used-vehicles-report
17 UNICEF & Pure Earth (2020). The Toxic Truth: Children’s exposure to lead pollution undermines a generation of future potential. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/reports/toxic-truth-childrens-exposure-to-lead- pollution-2020
18 Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). (2019). Global Burden of Disease. Available at: http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool.
19 Bhatia, Arti et al. “Heavy Metal Contamination of Soil, Irrigation Water and Vegetables in Peri-Urban
Agricultural Areas and Markets of Delhi”. Water Environment Research.Nov 2015; 87(11): 2027-2034. Available at https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/wef/wer/2015/00000087/00000011/art00010
20 US House of Representatives. (2021). Baby Foods Are Tainted with Dangerous Levels of Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury. Washington, DC: US House of Representatives. 4 Feb 2021.https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/2021-02-04%20ECP% 20Baby%20Food% 20Staff%20Report.pdf
21 Kumarathilaka, P., Seneweera, S., Ok, Y. S., Meharg, A., & Bundschuh, J. (2019). Arsenic in cooked rice foods: assessing health risks and mitigation options. Environment international, 127, 584-591.
22 Angelon-Gaetz, K. A., Klaus, C., Chaudhry, E. A., & Bean, D. K. (2018). Lead in spices, herbal remedies, and ceremonial powders sampled from home investigations for children with elevated blood lead levels—North Carolina, 2011–2018. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 67(46), 1290.; Hore, P., Alex-Oni, K., Sedlar, S., & Nagin, D. (2019). A spoonful of lead: a 10-year look at spices as a potential source of lead exposure. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 25, S63-S70.
23 Rodríguez Eugenio et al., 2018
24 https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/data/blood-lead-reference-value.htm
25 Pollution Knows No Borders. White Paper. Pure Earth and Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP). 2019. https://www.pureearth.org/pollution-knows-no-borders/