TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Toxic waste smuggling takes toll on industry
Enggartiasto Lukita (JP/Jerry Adiguna)The plastics industry has begun to feel the pinch of the government’s crackdown on imports of plastic scraps, which are frequently smuggled into the country along with hazardous and toxic waste
Change Size
Enggartiasto Lukita (JP/Jerry Adiguna)
The plastics industry has begun to feel the pinch of the government’s crackdown on imports of plastic scraps, which are frequently smuggled into the country along with hazardous and toxic waste.
Plastic tray producer PT Royal Citra Bersama, one of the companies whose containers were deemed illegal for containing toxic waste, abandoned operations on July 6, leaving 300 of its laborers unemployed.
Upon visiting one of its plastic scrap processing plants in Batam, Riau Islands, on July 8, The Jakarta Post found a deserted factory with locked doors.
An announcement written on a piece of paper on the factory’s front gate says that all operations ceased on July 6.
A security guard identified as Markus was the only person found at the location.
“I was told to guard this plant, while all workers were sent home because we don’t have enough materials for our operation. Our boss was also scared,” Markus told the Post.
He added that the company’s director, Suhardi Kie, aka Amin, had yet to return to the factory since authorities found that a container registered to the company was filled with hazardous waste allegedly imported from Australia.
Previously, the Batam Customs and Excise Office seized 65 containers at Batu Ampar Port in Batam following reports that they contained toxic and hazardous waste.
Upon further inspection it was found that 49 of the containers held dangerous waste, while the remaining 16 met import standards.
Apart from Royal Citra Bersama, containers registered to PT Wiraraja Plastic, PT Tanindo and PT Cakra Abadi, which manufacture plastic pellets, were also marked as illegal.
Although authorities ordered them to return the containers to their countries of origin, the companies have yet to do so with the customs office having yet to issue letters greenlighting the return.
In the meantime, the corporations have claimed that they have had to endure financial losses due to the export delay.
Indonesian Plastic Export-Import Industry Association (Aexipindo) secretary-general Marthen Tandi Rura told the Post that the companies had to pay storage fees for the containers totaling S$812,500 (US$5.9 million).
“They should issue the letter immediately, or we will suffer more,” Marthen said.
The government cracked down on imports of containers with waste at ports in Batam and Surabaya, East Java, amid a higher influx of illegal imports from developed countries to Southeast Asia as a result of China’s policy to reject poorly processed waste imports.
As the country’s waste management is still considered meager, many are urging the Trade Ministry to revise its 2016 regulation on nonhazardous waste imports to prevent a surge of unsorted waste to Indonesia’s shores.
The regulation currently allows the import of, among other materials, plastic scraps and scrap metal and paper to support local industries.
The industry claimed that the country’s waste management system had failed to produce sufficient supplies of plastic and other scrap materials needed for raw materials.
The Environment and Forestry Ministry sent a recommendation to its trade counterpart to remove a provision allowing certain products with codes in the Harmonized System (HS) — an internationally standardized classification system that categorizes imported commodities according to nature, type and purpose — to be exported to Indonesia.
One problematic code, the “Others” code in the scrap paper category, allowed exporters to smuggle hazardous and toxic waste, the Environment and Forestry Ministry’s Waste and Hazardous and Toxic Materials Management Directorate General secretary, Sayid Muhadhar, said.
In most cases, authorities find hazardous materials smuggled within packages containing scrap paper.
Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita said recently that his office decided to leave the HS code stipulation in the ministerial regulation untouched. He added the decision was made based on a suggestion from the Industry Ministry.
“We will make a list detailing commodities allowed to be put in the ‘Others’ category. The list should later be approved by the Environment and Forestry Ministry,” Enggartiasto said.
“The importers will also be required to carry recommendations from the environment and forestry and industry ministries,” he added.
The Industry Ministry’s director for the chemical downstream industry, Taufiek Bawazier, said his office’s recommendation was in line with the Basel Convention, a treaty controlling the movement of hazardous waste from one country to another.
The convention, amended in June, requires that waste exporters obtain the consent of receiving countries before shipping contaminated, mixed or unrecyclable plastic waste. It therefore allows developing countries to stop unwanted plastic waste from entering their territories.
“I guess the definition of waste in the Basel Convention is clear. We want to make sure our regulations are in line with it,” Taufiek said. (asp)
