Indonesia plans to prevent 16 million tons of plastic from entering ocean

The authority aims to reduce plastic leakage into Indonesia’s coastal waters by 70% by 2025.

A diverse community of plastic pollution action leaders across Indonesia’s public, private and civil society sectors released a joint Action Plan for combatting plastic pollution and waste.  In contrast to “business as usual”, the action plan envisions a System Change Scenario in which Indonesia will avoid consuming more than one million tons of avoidable plastics per year and double current recycling capacity.

Under the System Change Scenario, Indonesia is expected to prevent 16 million tons of plastic entering its coastal waters, curb 20 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, create more than 150,000 jobs, and significantly improve public health outcomes.

The action plan lays out a roadmap towards reducing the amount of plastic leakage (mismanaged plastic waste) into Indonesia’s coastal waters by 70% by 2025, as well as achieving near-zero plastic pollution by 2040 through transitioning to a circular economy for plastics.

The Action Plan compares two possible outcomes for Indonesia: one is the ‘business as usual’ scenario, in which plastic pollution is projected to increase by one-third by 2025 and more than double by 2040, if no action is taken. The other is the System Change Scenario, which would enact a series of ambitious, society-wide transformations, including the following five key interventions.

  • Reducing or substituting avoidable plastic usage to prevent the consumption of more than one million tons of plastics per year.
  • Re-designing plastic products and packaging with reuse or recycling in mind.
  • Doubling plastic waste collection to more than 80% by 2025.
  • Doubling current recycling capacity by 2025.
  • Building or expanding controlled waste disposal facilities to safely manage non-recyclable plastic waste.

Indonesia is among nations most impacted by plastic pollution and mismanaged waste. It currently generates around 6.8 million tons of plastic waste per year, a figure that is growing by 5% annually.

The delivery of the Action Plan represents a significant milestone in the work of the Indonesia National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP), the nation’s leading multi-stakeholder platform for shaping a unified and effective approach to tackling plastic pollution and waste.

It was launched one year ago by the Government of Indonesia in collaboration with the Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP), the flagship plastic action platform at the World Economic Forum, and is hosted at World Resources Institute (WRI) Indonesia in Jakarta.

Image credit: Maxim Blinkov / Shutterstock.com

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