Monday April 14th the kick-off of the Green Batik Pekalongan project was held. This project, which is subsidized by Partners for Water (NL), aims to solve the water problems of the batik industry in Pakalongan.
Pekalongan, in Central Java, Indonesia, is known as the birthplace of batik. Partly because of this rich tradition, the city is struggling with serious water problems, such as excessive groundwater extraction, soil subsidence and salinization. In addition, the discharge of untreated wastewater from batik workshops contributes to water pollution and water scarcity, which puts pressure on the local living environment. In this project, Rietland is investigating whether a reed bed can provide a solution here.
One of the most important aspects of this project is water reuse and conservation. The focus is on 1) using natural dyes from plants and minerals, 2) training the employees in the batik workshops in the economical use of water and 3) locally purifying the waste water and possibly reusing it, which significantly reduces the dependency on groundwater and tap water.
Rietland is participating in this consortium to realize the latter. We visited the four selected batik workshops in April 2025. The batik water has high concentrations of suspended matter and partly difficult to decompose organic material. Together with technical partners Hogeschool Saxion (NL) and local partner Resilience we are currently working on a solution.
We are very pleased to be part of a consortium that wants to make the batik industry more sustainable in Pekalongan. We do this together with The Water Agency, Resilience BV, Pekalongan University, Rietland BV, Saxion University of Applied Sciences, VEI, Partners for WaterBy developing a Green Batik standard for environmentally friendly production, the project aims to realize long-term benefits for both the community and its natural environment.