Civil organizations and other stakeholders have called on the government to come up with a clearer action plan for the excise tax on plastics, which was introduced nearly three years ago in an effort to reduce pollution and increase state revenue. Plastic packaging is the only addition to the items subject to excise tax in the 2019 state budget. The government announced its plans to impose the tax last year, and that it expected Rp 500 billion (US$35.11 million) in state revenue from the plastic tax.
Also last year, actress Nadia Mulya led an anti-plastic movement that started a petition on change.org, encouraging the Joko Widodo administration to tax plastic packaging. The petition, which is still open, had garnered 494,000 signatures out of the targeted 500,000 by April 3, 2019. Tiza Mafira, the director of Diet Kantong Plastik (Plastic Bag Diet), an NGO that opposes the distribution of single-use plastic bags, is also involved in the petition. She said that imposing a plastic tax would go much further than merely reducing the use of plastics, particularly single-use plastics.
“The plastic excise would result in more transparency in the plastics industry, such as production costs, and how it should be managed,” she told The Jakarta Post at a recent event. “Clear data [on this] will clearly show the nationwide impacts [of plastic use] and help in the policymaking process.”
On March 1, the Indonesian Retailers Association (Aprindo) revived another movement Tiza started, Pay for Plastic, which had fizzled out three years ago because it failed to generate any regulatory changes. Pay for Plastic discourages customers from using plastic bags by charging from Rp 200 to Rp 1,000 per plastic bag. According to Aprindo, the majority of modern retailers in the association had implemented the movement.
“While Aprindo’s initiative is admirable, it still comes from the private sector [...] It is up to the association whether they will elaborate on the impacts of the movement on the people,” said Tiza.
The movement needed the support of policymakers so it could provide feedback on waste reduction and expand further, including in traditional markets where single-use plastic bags were more prevalent, she added. Indonesia is the world’s second-largest plastic waste producer after China, and declared its commitment to reduce plastic waste by 30 percent by 2025 through Presidential Regulation No. 97/2017 on household waste management.
The change.org petition cites data from the Environment and Forestry Ministry that 1 million plastic bags are used every minute in the country and that half of this amount goes straight into the trash. It also cited the ministry's data that 12 million barrels of oil and 14 million trees were used every year in producing plastic packaging. When asked last month, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati did not confirm whether a regulation on the plastic tax would be issued this year. She acknowledged the urgent need for such a regulation, and that the ministry had “continued to consult with all stakeholders” on the matter.
However, Aprindo vice chair Yuvlinda Susanta said that the government had never consulted retailers on the plastic excise regulation, even though Aprindo was among the first to endorse a "plastic bag diet".
“We do not have detailed information on how imposing a plastic excise would effectively reduce the use of plastic bags," she said. "So we do not have any stance on the policy,. We do not disagree with it, though, and we are looking forward to [receiving] more concrete information.”
The government first revealed its plan to tax plastics in 2016, but has made no significant progress since then, including detailed criteria on the plastic products that would be subject to the tax. The Finance Ministry initially planned to tax all plastic products, including bottles, bags and sachets, in addition to plastic packaging. However, the plan prompted strong opposition from the food and beverage industry, which said it would increase prices and discourage consumption. In early 2016, the government introduced a fee for plastic bags in 22 cities, but canceled the program only a few months after it was implemented.
Thursday, 11 April 2019 08:47
Anti-plastic advocates call for details on plastic excise plan
