Jakarta (Greeners) – Ministry of Environment and Forestry issued Indonesian National Standard, or locally known as SNI, for ecolabeling on plastic shopping bags products and degradable bioplastic, on Tuesday (13/2), in Jakarta.
Ministry’s staff expert for Central and Regional Institution Relationships, Ilyas Assa’ad, said that SNI was issued as public information on material type or raw material of synthetic plastic ore for shopping bags.
With this kind of information, Assa’ad said, people would be expected to separate plastic waste, from recycle or degradable or needed further treatment.
“The standard instrument enables ministry to work and synergies with market mechanism and encourage systematic and institutional changes,” he said. “Consequently, Ministry of Environment and Forestry has been pushing for improvement from the upstream before plastic bags ended up as waste.”
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Furthermore, he said it was also a part of achieving sustainable development goals number 12, which was practicing sustainable consumption and production.
Head of Environment and Forestry Standardization Center, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Noer Adi Wardojo, said that the new additions were breakthrough in improving SNI related to environmentally plastic products in 2011.
Nevertheless, the government would not limit production and consumption on the two products as they would still open opportunities to other products which produce advance technology to create environmentally friendly plastic.
“These two plastic products have established the testing method to be degradable and they are ready for the market. The producers even gave their commitment to mass produce,” said Wardojo.
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Director General of Waste, Toxic and Dangerous Substance Management, Tuti Hendrawati Mintarsih, said that SNI labels would be included in the ministerial regulation on paid plastic bags. Furthermore, she said that details on environmentally friendly plastic in the ministerial regulation will be simplified through SNI.
Nevertheless, paid plastic bag policy will not be replaced with SNI. However, the ministerial regulation as legal instrument for SNI would be launched behind of schedule, which was supposed to be National Waste Care Day.
“So, we would not need to find other alternatives to substitute plastic, so just use SNI,” she added.
Reports by Danny Kosasih
22 Des 2023 
