Public Awaits Move from Plastic Producers

KOMPAS/AGUS SUSANTO

A scavenger walks along piles of garbage dominated by plastic waste on the coast of Dadap village, Juntinuyat district, Indramayu regency, West Java, on Saturday (1/12/2018). Plastic waste continues to pollute Indonesia\'s oceans. According to the Environment and Forestry Ministry, the country must deal with 1.2 million tons of marine waste annually, of which 41 percent, or 490,000 tons, is plastic waste

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JAKARTA, KOMPAS – The strategic contributions of producers whose products are the source of plastic pollution are required in the effort to reduce plastic waste. They could redesign their product packaging by using environmentally friendly or recycled materials and reabsorb used plastic packaging from consumers.

The Environment and Forestry Ministry is preparing a policy roadmap on the expanded responsibility of producers. The producers are responsible for redesigning, recycling and reabsorbing their plastic packaging as stipulated in Government Regulation (PP) No. 81/2012 on the management of household and other waste. “However, [the regulation] has never been seriously implemented or viewed as mandatory,” Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) executive director Nur Hidayati said in Jakarta on Monday (3/12/2018).

At present, waste banks and scavengers primarily collect plastic waste from product packaging. Because the work is voluntary and monetized, most plastic packaging end up littering the environment or in landfills.

Pollution tax

The Environment and Forestry Ministry data shows that large bottled water companies only reabsorbed 11 percent of their used products. Nur said that she had proposed the imposition of a pollution tax on non-reabsorbed products. This would be in accordance with the “polluter pays” principle in Law No. 32/2009 on environmental protection and management.

Plastic packaging waste in landfills pollutes the environment and contributes to the financial burden of regions. The cost of transporting and burying these waste materials are covered by regional budgets and by the public through residential sanitation fees.

The ministry’s director general of hazardous and toxic waste, Rosa Vivien Ratnawati, stressed that producers must also change their behavior. They could do so by redesigning their product packaging using more environmentally friendly materials, establishing a system to reabsorb plastic waste from consumers, and providing recycling plants. “We are still preparing a [ministerial regulation] roadmap with producers’ associations. There will be steps that they must adhere to,” she said.

Rosa added that Indonesia could learn from Denmark with a roadmap that focused on used plastic bottles, beverage cans and glass bottles. These three kinds of waste were considered easy to collect and recycle.

She said that the roadmap could be based on the commitment producers declared during the Our Ocean Conference in Bali on Oct. 29-30. Bottled water giant Danone-Aqua, for instance, committed to using 100-percent recyclable materials for its packaging and to increase the content of recycled plastic in its bottles to 50 percent by 2025. Beverage giant The Coca-Cola Company, meanwhile, committed to using 100-percent recyclable materials for packaging by 2025 and to using 50 percent recycled materials worldwide in its core packaging by 2030.

“We will ensure that they remain committed. This is in line with the roadmap that Indonesia is planning,” Rosa said.

KOMPAS/AGUS SUSANTO

Garbage dominated by plastic waste is seen on the coast of Dadap village, Juntinuyat district, Indramayu regency, West Java, on Saturday (1/12/2018). Plastic waste continues to pollute Indonesia\'s oceans.

Industry commitment

Environment sustainability head Maya Tamimi at the Unilever Indonesia Foundation said that Unilever Indonesia remained committed to managing its waste. “From the upstream, we are continuing our efforts to manage our product packaging. We are realizing this commitment through innovative recyclable packaging,” she said on Monday in Jakarta after a national coordination meeting for waste banks.

Maya said that the company’s current product packaging design was more efficient. The company was targeting 100-percent recyclable and reusable plastic packaging by 2025 that could also be used to make compost.

The multinational had also initiated the CreaSolv@ program in Sidoarjo, East Java. The technology, dubbed the first of its category in the world, recycle sachet packaging, which uses multi-layered plastic and is difficult to recycle.

Other companies have moved on their commitment to managing packaging waste, as seen in the establishment of the Packaging & Recycling Alliance for Indonesia Sustainable Environment, or Praise. Among its more prominent members are PT Coca-Cola Indonesia, PT Indofood Sukses Makmur, PT Nestle Indonesia, PT Tetra Pack Indonesia, PT Tirta Investama and PT Unilever Indonesia.

The alliance’s members all have plastic management initiatives in place, especially in managing the waste sourced from their own products. Tetra Pack Indonesia environment manager Reza Andreanto said that the company had set up a program to manage its product packaging, including carton paper, polyethylene and aluminum packages. Carton packaging, for instance, can be recycled into business cards, snack boxes or paper bags. Aluminum packaging can be recycled for use in plastic beads or as roofing material.

Even so, Reza said, the recycling value chain for a sustainable environment remained ineffective. “We need to work on four things, consumer awareness on sorting waste, waste collection infrastructure, opportunities for recycling businesses and market potential for recycled products,” he said.

Maya said that clear government regulations were needed to integrate upstream-to-downstream recycling for a circular economy.

Banten Deputy Governor Andika Hazrumy said that the provincial administration was formulating a local regulation on alternatives to single-use plastics. The provincial regulation, scheduled for issuance in mid-2019, would mandate restaurants, retailers, factories and government offices to reduce plastic waste.

Regarding the government’s efforts to push the domestic recycling industry, the Finance Ministry has yet to respond to the Industry Ministry’s July 2018 proposal to provide incentives. The Industry Ministry’s director general of chemical, textile and miscellaneous industries, Sigit Dwiwahjono, said that the ministry had proposed a 5-percent government subsidy for value-added tax as a fiscal incentive.

UN Comtrade data shows that the Industry Ministry recorded US$92 million in foreign exchange from recycled plastics exports (HS 3915) in 2017. The same year, the industrial sector spent US$50 million on imported materials to record a trade surplus of more than US$40 million.

(ICH/TAN/CAS/BAY)