Plastic pollution is not only threatening urban areas, but also villages, national parks and remote coastal areas in the country. Amid the threat of its impacts on the environment, the ecosystem and human health, public awareness must immediately be raised.
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JAKARTA, KOMPAS – Plastic pollution is not only threatening urban areas, but also villages, national parks and remote coastal areas in the country. Amid the threat of its impacts on the environment, the ecosystem and human health, public awareness must immediately be raised on reducing the use of plastic — especially disposable plastics — while concurrently developing a system to limit and manage plastic waste.
The increased use of plastics is projected to continue. The National Policy and Strategy on the Management of Household Waste and Similar Waste (Presidential Regulation No. 97/2017) estimates that the volume of waste will reach 66.5 million tons in 2018 and 70.8 million tons in 2025. This figure assumes that each person produces 0.7 kilograms of garbage per day.
According to the Environment and Forestry Ministry data, the percentage of plastic waste is increasing. The trend will continue if the use of plastic waste is not reduced among both consumers and producers.
The volume of plastic waste is increasing along with population growth, economic growth, and lifestyles. In the current lifestyle, such as online shopping, goods are packaged using layers of plastic or bubble wrap, which is then wrapped again in plastic by courier services.
The habit of littering, though the waste may seem small, like cigarette butts, has a great impact on the environment. The Ocean Conservancy’s 2017 International Coastal Cleanup report ranks plastic cigarette filters first, followed by food packaging.
"On the consumer side, more systematic education is needed regarding the impacts of consumption and the danger of the accumulated plastic waste. Buying a product is never separate from the ethical consequences," Saraswati Putri, an environmental philosophy lecturer at the University of Indonesia, said in Jakarta on Sunday.
This required a change in behavior which, according to Saraswati, was no longer a matter of choice, but an obligation. Excusing, ignoring or underestimating the waste problem would lead to disaster. She cited a variety of researches that have discovered microplastic content (less than 5 millimeters) and nanoplastic in the bodies of fish and plankton and the chemical composition of salt.
Microplastic and nanoplastic are both created during the chemical and physical degradation of large plastics or directly from products, such as plastic particles in soaps and cosmetic scrubs. "Waste disrupts the natural cycle, causing the environment to become polluted," said Saraswati.
Although the direct impact of humans consumption of microplastics in fish or salt is not widely known, a number of experts said the chemical reactions of plastic polymers and chemical additives were harmful to all living things.
Professor Akbar Tahir of the marine and fisheries department at Makassar’s Hasanuddin University said hazardous chemicals added to plastic, such as Bisphenol-A (BPA), phthalates, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and fire/flame retardants could cause cancer, miscarriages and autism.
"For us at the WWF, it\'s not plastic anymore, but plastic pollution. The citizens of the world must become aware that we are currently facing a plastic emergency," said WWF Indonesia communications director Elis Nurhayati.
Elis said this did not mean that the WWF was anti-plastic. She sought to encourage every individual and business to be aware that the use of disposable plastic packages could threaten the environment. Armed with this awareness, it was expected that all parties would become more responsible about making any decisions on production or consumption. For example, they would not dump garbage on land or at sea.
Besides being dirty, said Akbar Tahir, about 20 percent of all carelessly dumped garbage would eventually find its way to the rivers and the sea. This could also potentially occur at landfills (TPA) in the country, half of which were open landfills. Law No. 18/2008 on Waste Management actually requires all landfills to become sanitary landfills within five years.
Data from the Public Works and Housing Ministry and the Environment and Forestry Ministry shows that only 15 of the 390 landfills in Indonesia were sanitary landfills. Without the reduced use of plastic, the increasing volume of waste would lead to a need for more landfills, which would in turn require an extra budget for land acquisition. Waste management needs would result in an increased financial burden in the regions.
Reducing the volume of plastic waste was not impossible, as was proven by the East Java capital of Surabaya and the continuing decline in the volume of waste disposed at the Benowo landfill. Benowo landfill managed 1,441.62 tons of garbage in 2014. This decreased to 1,439.43 tons in 2015, followed by 1,433 tons in 2016 and 1,417 tons in 2017, despite the population’s growth from 3 million people in 2014 to 3.21 million people in 2015, to 3.3 million people in 2016 and 3.34 million people in 2017.
Surabaya Mayor Tri Rismaharini said on Sunday that the key to this achievement lay in community group participation in sorting garbage. These groups were customers of garbage banks that monetized used plastics, metal, paper and cardboard.
52 million plastic bags
Another example is the South Kalimantan city of Banjarmasin, which issued in 2016 a regulation that prohibits the use of plastic bags in modern retail stores and shops. In the first two years since implementation, Banjarmasin Mayor Ibn Sina said that 52 million plastic bags were prevented from becoming waste.
The volume of plastic waste was also reduced through the establishment of integrated waste management sites (TPST) and waste banks. TPSTs compost organic waste while separating valuable plastic, cardboard and metal wastes. Only the remaining waste is sent to the landfill, a process that has reduced the amount of waste buried at the Basirih landfill from 450 tons to 338 tons per day.
The West Java city of Bogor is also carrying out efforts to reduce plastic waste. Starting from Dec. 1, 2018, Municipal Regulation No. 61/2018 prohibits modern retailers and stores from providing plastic bags to consumers, who are expected to bring their own shopping bags instead.