Central Java villages take fast fashion to the cleaners at Indonesia’s Supreme Court

Central Java villages take fast fashion to the cleaners at Indonesia’s Supreme Court

SUKOHARJO, Indonesia — Sarmi recalls the unusual blight that fell over Gupit village around 2017, when doves and finches appeared to vanish from the sky. “With pollution that acrid and poisonous, there weren’t any birds or animals around — they all went away,” she told Mongabay Indonesia. Life in this part of Sukoharjo, a subdued farming district on the island of Java, changed in 2017 when Indonesia’s largest textile group, known as Sritex, open…