Jakarta (Greeners) – Government is setting up programs, regulations, and national action plans to reduce plastic waste in Indonesia, said Siti Nurbaya Bakar, Minister of Environment and Forestry, in Jakarta on Tuesday (20/6/2018).

Based on data from sipsn.menlh.go.id, plastic waste composition covers 16 percent out of national waste volume.

“There are specific plastic waste national plan. We have prepared for presidential regulation, it’s on the final stage and already circulated to involve other ministries, including navy and police,” said Minister Siti adding that reducing plastic waste will cover retail, road map on reducing waste by producers and business, and marine plastic waste action plan.

Furthermore, she said only 10 to 15 percent out of plastic waste volume is being recycled, meanwhile 60-70 percent of plastic waste goes to landfills, and 15-30 percent is not managed and dumped to water areas, including rivers, lakes, beaches, and oceans.

READ ALSO: Indonesia Encourages Reduce Plastic Waste to Southeast Asia Nations

Executive Director of Indonesia’s Plastic Bag Diet Movement, Tiza Mafira said that only few plastic bags recycled. “Less than seven percent is being recycled, which means 93 percent of them are going to landfills or rivers and oceans,” said Mafira adding governments are slow to implement plastic bag regulations.

“It is unfortunate that current regulations are more of social warning or coordination, for instance on plastic bag policies. There are 50 countries with the policies but in Indonesia, there are regional still hesitant and doubt to implement them,” she said adding that it is a setback.

“I think the setback is because of criticism, there are disagreement such as the plastic bag levy. Industry consider the levy had decreased purchasing power meanwhile the impacts are social, environmental and towards humans,” she said.

READ ALSO: Ministry of Environment and Forestry Readies to Tackle Plastic Waste Issue

Sri Bebassari, a waste expert, said that waste management should be prioritized, regulations must be considered and implemented by government and people, preparing for funding to manage waste, and support from institutions and other ministries, and technologies to manage waste.

“People need to take part because reduce, reuse, and recycle are not long term because sorting waste is long term, and the highest knowledge,” she said adding that it is difficult to implement regulation, policy, or national action plans if people are not supporting and indifferent towards government’s program.

Furthermore, she said governments to support the movement to encourage people to follow regulations, policies, and national action plans.

Reports by Dewi Purningsih

Jakarta (Greeners) – Minister of Marine and Fisheries Affairs Susi Pudjiastuti underlines that overfishing on sharks and manta rays in Indonesia have led to declining population of the two species, adding that high prices have spiked the trade.

“When I was a child [there was a story that] when a whale shark came then it was a sign all fish are coming, so we celebrate it. If it was stranded in the coastal areas, it didn’t die because people pushed it back to the sea. But, recently, whale sharks have become commodity,” said Minister Susi at National Symposium on Sharks and Manta Rays, in Jakarta on Wednesday (28/3).

READ ALSO: Government Firmly Stands on Cantrang Ban

Furthermore, Minister Susi urged local governments to open up communication with local people and fisheries consultants to ban sharks and manta rays fishing.

“I suggest we can also come up with actions and visit seafood restaurants to stop serve shark fin soup by handing out t-shirts or stickers, so it’s direct communication to customers,” she added.

On shark and manta rays trade, Head of Marine and Fisheries Affairs Ministry Research Center, Tony Ruchimat, said that the ministry had planned out national action plan for sharks and manta rays for 2018 to 2022. The five years plan comprises of strengthening database, regulation, and standing position in the Appendix Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) as both species have been categorized as Appendix II and mechanism use control.

Sustainable use which focusing more on conservation has been the recommended choice considering that sharks and manta rays have slow reproduction and growth rate.

READ ALSO: Less Fish Catch Increases Food Security

To protect sharks and manta rays, Ministry of Marine and Fisheries Affairs have issued several regulations, which dated back in 2013 to 2016.

“All of those regulations are expected to improve sharks and manta rays population so that our fishermen can make use of it. Hence, I hope that law enforcement can enforce policies on sharks and manta rays in Indonesia,” she added.

Reports by Dewi Purningsih

Jakarta (Greeners) – After ratified the bill on Minamata Convention on Mercury, Indonesian government is setting up the National Action Plan (NAP), said a senior official, in Jakarta on Thursday (14/9).

Arief Yuwono, expert staff on foreign cooperation evaluation of Ministry of Environment and Forestry, said that Indonesia had started the initiatives and regulations on mercury since the first signing in 2013.

The action plan, Yuwono said, would integrate existing regulations and initiatives from different institutions and ministries.

“These regulations will be finalized as National Action Plan which will be legally binding, so we’re looking at the possibility of a presidential regulation,” said Yuwono adding the process should be finalized after Conference of Parties (COP) I, in Genewa, on September 24-29.

Indonesia needs to immediately ratified the Convention to take part on the meeting.

The hardest homework, he admitted, was to integrate the plan, nationally. On March 9, President Joko Widodo had instructed to revise a government regulation issued in 2001 on toxic and hazardous waste.

Three years after ratifying the Convention, the party must submitted its National Action Plan to the UN Environment secretariat.

“The action plan is not just the work of Ministry of Environment and Forestry, but lots of sectors, 13 to 14 ministries. Involved institutions, including civil societies must not be overlooked. This is a challenge because we need to integrate all action plans from each institution to set up the National Action Plan,” he said.

Mercury ban on artisanal mining

Director general of pollution control and environmental damage, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Karliansyah, said that the Convention included phasing out mercury use on Acetaldehyde by 2018, the use of mercury on batteries, thermometers, and tensimeter by 2020 and chlor-alkali by 2025. Meanwhile, the permanent ban on mercury use for small and artisanal mining continues.

The use of mercury, Karliansyah said, is still allowed in certain amount for civilian and military protection, research, instrument calibration, reference standard, switch and relay, and cold cathode fluorescent lamp.

In 2010, an international data recorded toxic mercury emission accounts for 37 percent from small gold mining, 24 percent from fossil fuel, 18 percent from metal products, and 5-9 percent comes from cement, incinerator, and others.

In Indonesia, mercury is mostly used on small and artisanal gold mining, of which occurred in 850 areas in 197 cities/districts in 32 provinces with more than 250,000 miners.

Ministry of Environment and Forestry evaluated several places such as Poboya, Central Sulawesi, Batok Mountain, Buru Island of Maluku and Pongkor Mountain in Bogor. Mercury levels on local people’s blood samples reaching more than 20 µg/l -49,6 µg/l, meanwhile the standards from WHO is 5-10 µg/l.

“Furthermore, we tested the use of fibers or used the gravity to release gold chemical like we did in Lebak, Banten. Meanwhile, in Poboya, we are trying to shift the livelihood of local people using social forestry scheme, such as in Pongkor of which the local miners are recruited to work at Antam subsidiary,” he said.

Other efforts from the government, including in health sector which changed the use of mercury tensimeter to 30-40% non mercury tensimeter, the change of 70 percent mercury thermometer and limited mercury thermometer, ban on the use and store health equipment with mercury by Ministry of Health in seven provinces back in 2015.

In the industry sector, changed to energy saving lamps with Light Emitting Diode (LED). In gold mining industry, there’s a development on gold processing techniques without mercury, such as gravity techniques, gold smelting, leaching techniques, and other chemical processes.

“These efforts have been cross-sectoral, and these are the ones being integrated,” he said.

Reports by Danny Kosasih