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'This is part of mainstream movement': Jakartans welcome single-use plastic bag ban
The capital is finally among the regions in the country that have banned single-use plastic bags, after other cities such as South Kalimantan’s Banjarmasin, East Kalimantan’s Balikpapan and Bali’s Denpasar enacted similar policies.
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illustration (Shutterstock/Vikentiy Elizarov)
J
akarta has finally hopped onto the bandwagon of regions restricting single-use plastic bags by issuing a long-anticipated regulation on the matter.
Gubernatorial Regulation No. 142/2019 on eco-friendly bag usage was signed by Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan on Dec. 27 and is to take effect in June, six months after it was enacted on Dec. 31.
The regulation, a copy of which was obtained by The Jakarta Post, imposes a ban on single-use plastic bags in modern department stores and supermarkets, as well as traditional markets, and requires eco-friendly bags be available in stores and markets.
Failure to do so would result in a minimum fine of Rp 5 million (US$358), which must be paid within a week of the stores receiving a notification letter about the sanction. The penalty would multiply if the stores fail to pay within deadline.
If offending stores do not pay the penalty five weeks of getting the warning, their permits will be frozen and possibly revoked, according to Article 28.
Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan said that that although not all plastics were problematic and some could even be repurposed, the latest regulation was made to raise awareness.
“The point is that we want to raise people’s awareness to reduce plastic waste,” Anies told reporters on Tuesday.
