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Retailers hesitant about pay for plastic campaign
Retailers have expressed their reluctance over requiring customers to pay for plastic bags, which are usually provided for free, to support the Pay for Plastic campaign of the upcoming Jakarta Great Sale (JGS) festival
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etailers have expressed their reluctance over requiring customers to pay for plastic bags, which are usually provided for free, to support the Pay for Plastic campaign of the upcoming Jakarta Great Sale (JGS) festival.
Spokesperson for PT Metropolitan Retail Mart, the company behind Metro Department Store, Mary Victoria Tarore, said on Friday that Metro would take care of plastic bag costs so its customers would not have to purchase them.
'The plastic bags are complimentary,' she said.
Mary said via email that in supporting the environment, Metro had used degradable plastics since 2010.
'We will possibly use other materials too,' she said.
Mary added that it could charge customers for reusable bags.
Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama last week declared June this year as 'no plastic month' to encourage residents to reduce their use of plastics. The declaration was in response to an online petition for a one-day plastic free day posted on website change.org.
More than 6,467 people have signed the #pay4plastic petition, which is supported by environmental organizations such as Greeneration Indonesia, the World Wide Fund's Earth Hour community, LeafPlus and the Ciliwung Institute.
The administration plans to put pressure on the 74 shopping centers participating in JGS 2013, which will be held June 1-July 14.
Indonesia Retailers Association (Aprindo) deputy secretary-general Satria Hamid Ahmadi said recently that his association welcomed and was ready to support the Pay for Plastic campaign but asked the administration to educate the public on the program first.
'Educating customers takes time. We cannot abruptly ask them to buy plastic bags for the entire month,' he said.
Satria said if the campaign was not done properly, it would ignite protests among customers, adding that they would blame retailers of taking advantage of them.
'We agree that it has to be a long-term campaign. But we cannot do right away for a whole month. It would be better to do it for one-day first,' he said,
PT Indomarco Prismatama (Indomaret) marketing director Wiwiek Yusuf said his company would not require its customers to purchase plastic bags.
'We will support the campaign by requiring our cashiers to ask customers whether or not they needed a plastic bag,' he said, adding that changing the mindset of customers had to be done gradually.
