The Contributions of the Private Sector Towards Indonesia's Waste Reduction Roadmap

JAKARTADAILY.ID - Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia and the world's fourth-most populous country with over 275 million people, is one of the world’s largest contributors to plastic waste in the oceans, according to a report by the World Bank.

The 2021 report found that Indonesia generates about 7.8 million tons of plastic waste annually. From that figure, 4.9 million tons of plastic waste is mismanaged, for example, uncollected, disposed of in open dumpsites, or leaked from improperly managed landfills.

“Uncollected waste contributes more to plastic waste discharges than leakages from final disposal sites, and very little plastic is recycled,” the World Bank’s report titled “plastic waste Discharges: From Rivers and Coastlines in Indonesia,” said.

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Some key findings from the report also showed from “an estimated 346.5 kiloton per year (estimated range of 201.1 – 552.3 kiloton per year) of plastic waste is discharged into the marine environment from land-based sources in Indonesia, two-thirds of which come from Java and Sumatra.”

Furthermore, the report also said about 83 percent of the plastic waste that is discharged into Indonesia’s marine environment comes from land-based sources and is carried through the country’s intricate river systems. The remaining 17 percent are derived from discarded wastes from coastal areas.

It was not the waste from the urban area that contributed the most to mismanaged plastic waste. According to the report, two-thirds of mismanaged plastic waste came from rural areas due to very limited waste collection rates. Sadly, direct disposal in water is the main pathway of plastic waste reaching rivers, which is often caused by the population not having access to waste collection services.

Indonesia’s waste reduction roadmap regulation

As part of an effort to speed up sustainable development and plastic waste reduction, The Ministry of Environment and Forestry has issued Ministerial Regulation No. 75/2019 regarding the Roadmap to Waste Reduction by Producers.

This ministerial regulation offers the roadmap framework and helps create an agenda for waste reduction to become one of Indonesia’s national priorities. Indonesia’s classic waste management problems are usually underfunded issues due to the challenging economics of high capital and operational expenditures as well as weak revenue streams.

The Ministerial Regulation No. 75/2019 would require producers to create a roadmap to reduce waste by 30 percent from 2020 to 2029. Producers refer to business players in manufacturing, including fast-moving consumer goods, and personal care. Restaurants, cafés, hotels, and the retail industry are also included.

Meanwhile, the term waste refers to plastic, aluminum, glass, and paper.

The Ministerial Regulation also mandates the private sector to take on a number of responsibilities in reducing waste, including they must provide waste storage facilities (Article 7), waste monitoring (Article 13), and fund waste-reduction programs (Article 26).

There are also other regulations that have been released in Indonesia regarding household and waste management, which include Government Regulation no. 81 of 2012 concerning Household Waste and Waste Management, Presidential Regulation no. 97 of 2017 concerning National Policies and Strategies for Household-Friendly Waste Management, and the Like.