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National scene: Govt reminds public of danger of plastic waste
Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar highlighted on Sunday the urgency of treating plastic waste, which is one of the country’s major environmental problems
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E
nvironment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar highlighted on Sunday the urgency of treating plastic waste, which is one of the country’s major environmental problems.
Siti said plastic bag consumption in the country was one of the largest in the world with 9.5 billion items consumed per year.
“The most dangerous thing is when the waste is thrown into the ocean and it disintegrates into particles consumed by fish,” she said during a Car Free Day event in Bogor, West Java.
The plastic particles, which take 400 years degrade, are then poisonous for humans, she said.
A study published in Science journal last year found that Indonesia produced 3.2 million tons of plastic waste in 2010, with around 1.29 million tons of that ending up in the ocean. The figure places Indonesia second only to China, with its 8.8 million tons of waste, or 27 percent of global plastic waste.
About 1.3 million to 3.5 million tons of China’s plastic waste ends up in the ocean.
