Environmental group Nexus3 Foundation found that a 2021 government regulation on environmental protection did not include byproducts of the steel, iron and palm oil industries on the list of B3 materials. The policy is one of the dozens of the Job Creation Law’s derivative regulations.

Among the delisted materials are steel and nickel slag, which are obtained from the iron and steel industry and commonly contain trace amounts of toxic metals such as chromium and manganese.

The palm oil industry produces spent bleaching earth (SBE) as a byproduct. The industry uses powdered bleaching earth to refine the palm oil’s clarity and remove any odors. The spent powder retains some residual oil that must be disposed of carefully to prevent it from leaching into the soil and water or catching fire.

“It’s important to know that those wastes contain dioxins. If left unchecked, dioxins could accumulate [in the environment],” Nexus3 founder Yuyun Ismawati said in a discussion in late March.

The World Health Organization defines dioxins as a group of chemically related compounds that are persistent environmental pollutants. They are commonly found accumulating in the food chain, mainly in the fatty tissue of animals.

The chemical compound is deemed highly toxic and able to cause health problems in humans, such as immune system damage, hormone disturbances and cancer.

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According to the government’s inventory of several persistent environmental pollutants in 2013, ferrous and non-ferrous metal products emitted up to 1.2 kilograms of toxic equivalent (TEQ) of dioxins. In total, the country produced around 9.8 kg of TEQ of dioxins that year.

While the government had known about the existence and potential danger of dioxins, Yuyun claimed authorities made little to no effort to prevent its side effects on humans due to a lack of data on the substance’s direct effect on health. “Absence of data does not mean an absence of problems.”

Previously, environmentalists also lambasted the government for delisting fly ash and bottom ash (FABA) from the B3 waste list in the same government regulation.

A byproduct of coal burning in power plants and factories, FABA commonly contains heavy metals such as mercury, lead and arsenic that are highly toxic to the environment and public health.

Although the government had launched various tests before delisting the substances from the B3 list, the decision was made after corporations complained to the government about a number of regulations that hindered them from properly processing the hazardous waste, said Fajri Fadhillah of the Indonesian Center of Environmental Law (ICEL).

“Corporations are using people’s lack of knowledge about the policy to save costs by reusing the waste,” Fajri said in the same discussion.

He added the delisting might help corporations avoid the possibility of getting sued with liability lawsuits for causing health problems among affected people.

However, the Environment and Forestry Ministry’s waste and hazardous and toxic materials management director general Rosa Vivien Ratnawati defended the decision, saying the government had run various tests to determine whether the delisted wastes fulfilled requirements as hazardous waste.

“All of the aforementioned waste could still have value in the circular economy. For example, steel and nickel slag could potentially be reused in construction projects, hence reducing consumption of other [primary] resources,” Rosa said in late March.

She added that all kinds of delisted waste could still be regarded as B3 waste. For example, electric furnace dust produced from induction furnace technology or SBE with more than 3 percent of oil content could still be considered hazardous waste.

The director general claimed the Basel Convention, which regulates the movement of hazardous waste between countries, also listed steel slag, nickel waste and mill scale as non-hazardous waste.

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Industries welcomed the decision to delist the materials from the list of hazardous wastes as it allowed them to monetize their mounting waste.

According to the government's estimate in 2019, the country’s palm oil industry produced around 778,000 tons of SBE per year. Meanwhile, the iron and steel industries produce a combined total of 21.8 million tons of slag annually.

The Indonesian Iron and Steel Industry Association welcomed the policy, saying the industry had been trying to get slag as well as other byproducts delisted from the hazardous waste list so they could use them for other purposes.

An official at the association, who wished to remain anonymous, said several companies had prepared the production chain for processed slag -- a move previously hindered by the B3 label.

Indonesian Oil Palm Association (Gapki) secretary-general Togar Sitanggang said several palm oil producers had been working to lower the amount of residual oil in the SBE and use the waste to produce bricks, among other purposes.

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Researchers had also welcomed the decision as it might lead to more utilization of the wastes outside of research purposes.

Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) chemistry researcher Yenny Meliana said several studies had shown that palm oil byproducts could be used for biodiesel and chemical absorbents, among other products. “If the [SBE] contains no heavy metals, it should be safe [to be turned into other products].”

LIPI metallurgical researcher Iwan Setiawan said byproducts of the steel and iron industry had been commonly reused to be mixed with concrete in the cement industry, although such usage was commonly hindered by prevailing regulations.