Indonesia is recently facing a major problem of imports of waste and scrap plastics. To address the problem, Government through the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLKH) is currently building a roadmap on how Indonesia is no longer dependent on imports in the future.
“We must optimize the garbage in the country. I believe there are still a lot of potential wastes in the country, that is very good,” said the Head of Sub-directorate of Goods and Packaging Directorate of Waste Management of KLKH, Ujang Solihin Sidik in webinar discussion on “Rising from Pandemic: Encouraging Circular Economy to Protect People and the Earth”, Friday (6/19). The second step to be taken by the government is to reduce the need for virgin plastic, which is pellet made from petroleum.
“In the future, the government must issue a policy that goods from recycled plastics must be a priority in the procurement process,” he said.
Ujang explained that KLHK and the Goods and Services Procurement Agency (LKPJ) are currently developing a green procurement policy.
“So, in the future goods that are recycled products will be given a special label, and become priority in the procurement of goods and services, especially in government,” he said. According to Ujang, the government has now labeled priority for paper in the procurement of goods. “Going forwards, we will prioritize recycled plastic products.”
The government of Indonesia is working on a process of goods and services procurement that is environmentally friendly (green procurement). Thus, the increasing supply of goods and services must be encouraged to give concerns on the environmental aspects.
The legal basis for green procurement includes Law No. 32 of 2009 concerning Environmental Protection and Management. The Laws says that environmentally friendly procurement of goods and services is one of the economic instruments of the economy incentives or disincentives. Another regulation is the Presidential Decree (Perpres) No. 54 of 2010 concerning Procurement of Government Goods and Services.
Recycling Business Unit Danone-AQUA, South Tangerang. (Megapolitan.Antaranews.Com/Foto: HO/Danone-AQUA/PR/Doc).
The issuance of this policy regarding green procurement will lead to all process of procurements that consider environmental aspects as main requirements, including for partners.
There are number of reasons why procurement of goods and services must be environmentally friendly, among others, to reduce negative environmental impacts. In addition, to increase compliance with environmental regulations, minimize waste, support the conservation of resources, and efficiency of natural resources such as energy, water and minerals.
In order to support the government’s target in reducing waste, Danone Indonesia’s Director of Sustainable Development, Karyanto Wibowo explained about the #BijakBerplastik initiative that has been launched since 2018. Karyanto mentioned the movement as a contribution by Danone-AQUA which focuses on developing waste collection, consumer education related to waste management, and innovation on product packaging.
Danone AQUA is targeting to collect more plastics than are used in 2025, educate up to 100 million consumers, ensure 100% of its packaging are able to reuse, recycled as compost, and increase the content of recycled material in bottles to 50%.
“To achieve the target, currently we have taken various initiatives, including building the Integrated Waste Management Site (Tempat Pengelolaan Sampah Terpadu /TPST) together with the Lamongan District Government. We are also compiling the learning module “Sampahku Tanggung Jawabku” for elementary school students and story books for kindergartens, and continuing the research for more environmentally friendly packaging innovations.
Since its launch two years ago, Danone-AQUA has currently collected used plastic bottles of up to 13.000 tons and educated more than 18 million consumers to be wise in their daily consumption and waste management,” said Karyanto. (E6/*)/Rls).
