The Government of Sragen Regency said that in Sragen batik sub-cluster, there are 4.817 batik industries that employ 7.072 batik workers (Pemda Sragen, 2007, http://www.sragen.go.id/kliwonan.php). With regard to that batik industries number, everyday batik industries in Sragen sub-cluster definitely need much clean water to fulfill their production processes (dyeing and nglorod/cooking fabric to remove wax). Each batik industry needs minimum 5 m3 clean water in approximate per day to fulfill its production processes necessaries. Then 80% of the water used in production processes become wastewater (CGRS-SWCU & RAPID-Dikti, 2004-2005).
Currently batik artisans in Sragen sub-cluster prefer to use synthetic dyestuff than to use natural dyestuff because natural dyeing process needs more times than synthetic chemical dyeing process. They considered synthetic chemical dyeing process is not costs efficient.
Unfortunately, they do not know the dangerousness of the synthetic chemical dyestuff remained in the batik wastewater. They usually channel the batik wastewater directly to drainage system that flows to rice fields and
They do not know that their habit will cause environmental problems. That untreated wastewater has also leaked through the wells as seen in
Based on these identify environmental issues there is a need to formulate an action program of knowledge transfer from academia (CGRS-SWCU) to people (batik artisans) at the grassroots, to solve these problems.
Sources: CGRS-SWCU & RAPID-Dikti, 2004-2005 & CGRS-SWCU & Hibah Bersaing-Dikti, 2007 and Pemda Sragen, 2007, (http://www.sragen.go.id/kliwonan.php).
