Even in waste banks where people are encouraged to collect non-organic waste in return for money, flexible plastic is rarely included and is eventually dumped in final disposal sites most of the time. Every kilogram of flexible plastic is worth Rp 500 (3.5 US cents), only a quarter the value of other types of plastic waste.

Flexible plastic material is usually found in the form of sheets. It is used in products that are used in daily life, such as sachet or pouch packaging for candies, coffee, shampoo or oil etc.

In order to reduce the amount of flexible plastic waste in their waste banks, some recyclers have tried to upcycle it and add more value by, for example, folding and weaving it to form tissue boxes, floor mats or handbags. One of these recyclers is Syamsuryati from Anggrek waste bank in Jagakarsa, South Jakarta.

“A tissue box can use up to 100 pieces of upcycled coffee sachets,” she said, noting that the end product sells for at least Rp 40,000.

Another woman from Rosella waste bank in Kebayoran Baru, also in South Jakarta, Endarwati, has tried to be even more creative. She and her fellow waste bank activists cut out pictures of flowers from plastic packaging and then sew them onto fabrics to make clothes.

“A piece of such modified fabric can sell for up to Rp 150,000. It’s pretty, right?” she said as she showed off a blue skirt with pink plastic flowers she was wearing.

Waste management NGO Yayasan Rumah Pelangi program director El Hilal said that, although not significant, such attempts were good ways to reduce flexible plastic waste.

Unlike plastic bottle waste that already has a number of recycling facilities, flexible plastic is usually only dumped in final disposal sites for nothing.

Also, unlike thicker kinds of plastic that can easily be shredded and processed into plastic pellets that can be reused by mixing them with virgin plastic, flexible plastic comes in various forms of packaging of different qualities.

“In Jakarta, flexible plastic waste probably only accounts for around 5 percent of the total plastic waste. Plastic bottles and other thicker plastics dominate,” he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

“I assume that such waste requires more expensive and complicated processes, but gives less promising results in return. Hence there’s no special recycling facility for it,” he added.

Unilever Indonesia has tried to establish a recycling site specifically created to turn flexible plastic waste into plastic pellets that can be used for new plastic.

On Thursday, it launched the facility, which is located in Sidoarjo, East Java. For its trial, the company is collecting flexible plastic waste from eight cities across Indonesia namely Jakarta, Bandung in West Java, Surabaya and Sidoarjo in East Java , Semarang in Central Java, Denpasar in Bali, Medan in South Sumatra and Makassar in South Sulawesi.

Unilever Indonesia head of sustainable business, and head of the Unilever Indonesia Foundation, Sinta Kaniawati said the company realized that many of its products used flexible plastic as packaging.

Although the facility’s capacity is only 3,000 tons per day, Sinta said the company was open to the possibility of building more such facilities in other cities to reduce the carbon footprint from transporting the plastic to Sidoarjo.

“We’ll not only accept waste from our products but also from other companies. We also welcome other companies should they want to join our site,” she said.

Plastic pellets from recycled flexible plastic only contribute 25 percent to the composition of new plastic packaging — the remaining 75 percent will still come from virgin plastic pellets.

The head of the society involvement division of the Jakarta Environment Agency, Themmy Kendra Putra, called on more consumer goods companies to include waste management in their business to help the government reduce waste production.

“However, waste production actually should be managed at its main source, the consumers. People should be more active in sorting their domestic waste, collecting recyclable waste for waste banks and composting organic waste, so that less and less waste is dumped in disposal sites,” he said.

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