Indonesia has set a bold vision to reduce waste through Presidential Regulation No. 97/2017. The country aims to cut at least 30 percent of total waste and 70 percent of marine plastic debris.

Under the current pace, Indonesia will produce 70.8 million tons of annual waste in 2025. With the regulation, the government wants to reduce 30 percent of waste (20.9 million tons), which would leave 70 percent (49.9 million tons) to be processed through recycling and other waste treatment methods. However, the question remains: How will Indonesia achieve this ambitious target?

Last year, less than 50 percent of waste in Indonesia was handled properly despite improvements to the national waste collecting system, the Environment and Forestry Ministry’s waste management director, Novrizal Tahar, said during a Jakpost Up Close webinar on Friday.

The webinar, titled “Protecting the environment through recycling” is the first part of Jakpost Up Close’s Circular Economy webinar series held in collaboration with Coca-Cola Indonesia.

Novrizal said the government was eager about bolstering its national strategies and strengthening regulations and international cooperation to improve recycling efforts.

“Simultaneously, we have to elicit change through public awareness. We see now lots of communities appearing before the public [and] a lot of entrepreneurial social movements are also driven by public figures,” he said.

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