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t has been a year since the Banjarmasin administration issued a regulation banning modern retailers from providing plastic bags to their customers.

However, many people are still unaware of the policy, appearing confused when told they are supposed to bring their own bags.

“There are more customers who don’t know [about the policy], especially housewives, than those who do. If they don’t know, then we just give them cardboard boxes,” Mayanta, a cashier at a minimarket in Banjarmasin, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

The policy, while lauded by environmentalists, is far from popular among regular shoppers. Mayanta said some customers became upset when they found out her workplace no longer provided plastic bags.

“Some said they preferred not to go to minimarkets anymore. But what can we do about it? It’s a government policy,” she said.

Karina, a cashier at another minimarket, said some customers had canceled their transactions when they found out about the policy.

“They preferred to go to another supermarket outside Banjarmasin because the supermarkets still provide free plastic bags, and bigger parking lots,” she said.

Despite the rejection from some residents, Banjarmasin claims the policy is working.

The South Kalimantan capital, the only city to implement a total plastic bag ban, has reduced bag consumption by 80 percent.

The ban on plastic bags in Banjarmasin has been in effect since February 2016, when the government implemented a policy of charging for plastic bags in 23 cities as a pilot project.

While not as successful as in Banjarmasin, the other 22 cities, including Palembang, Surabaya and Bandung, at least reduced plastic bag consumption by 40 percent by charging for bags.

With National Waste Awareness Day approaching on Feb. 21, the central government has said it is time for all Indonesian citizens to pay for plastic bags when shopping at modern retailers.

Indonesia is now the second-biggest contributor to marine plastic debris worldwide. Plastic bag waste from modern retailers in Indonesia alone is estimated to account for 9.8 billion bags a year, about 38 per person. Only China uses more plastic bags than Indonesia.

“There will be no more free plastic shopping bags,” the Environment and Forestry Ministry’s director general of dangerous toxic materials and waste management, Tuti Hendrawati Mintarsih, told the Post.

She added that the policy would be stipulated in a ministerial regulation to be issued later this month. Under the regulation, modern retailers must either charge customers for bags or not provide plastic bags at all.

Each regional administration will be responsible for determining the price of plastic bags in their respective regions. The money from the plastic bags will go directly to the retailers.

However, the ministry is currently lobbying modern retailers to develop a mechanism to ensure that money from the bag sales is used for environmental purposes.

The ministry is also mulling requiring modern retailers to take back the plastic bags that they sell to customers.

Further, the regulation will allow regional administrations to totally ban the sale of plastic shopping bags at modern retailers, as the Banjarmasin administration has done since last year.

“We accommodate those who want to totally ban sales of plastic bags in the regulation. But it’s not mandatory,” Tuti said.

Banjarmasin Mayor Ibnu Sina acknowledged that the public still needed to be educated.

“We will continue the ban even though there are some protests from retailers as well as civil society groups. We just face them because we have felt the positive impact of the policy. I also ask the governor of South Kalimantan to make the ban a provincial policy,” he said.

The policy is part of Indonesia’s commitment to combatting plastic debris in the ocean.

Plastic shopping bags are so resilient, pervasive and toxic that the world’s ecosystems are believed to be at a tipping point, with tens of thousands of turtles, whales, other marine creatures and sea birds dying each year after ingesting plastic material.