With the campaign season having ended over the weekend, local administrations across the country are now urged to manage the waste from campaign props to prevent it from polluting the environment and filling up landfills.

Local administrations have been busy removing campaign flags, banners, posters, stickers and billboards of various sizes from public spaces since Sunday, the start of the three-day election silence, before some 204 million voters cast their ballots for the simultaneous presidential and legislative elections on Wednesday.

In response to environmental concerns surrounding waste from campaign paraphernalia, the Environment and Forestry Ministry notified regional administrations in a circular last week not to dispose of campaign props in landfills and instead to recycle them.

The ministry’s Waste Management Director General Rosa Vivien Ratnawati urged local administrations to sort and shred recyclable parts of campaign props, such as plastic and paper, to be delivered to waste banks or recycling centers (TPS 3R).

“Some people are also creative [in using campaign banners] as tarpaulin for stalls. It is no problem since it is being reused,” Rosa told a press briefing last week.

Read also: Campaign banners cleared as election silence begins

Rosa also encouraged local administrations to ask election contenders and their campaigners to participate in cleaning up their own campaign props and managing the waste.

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