5 Corporations' Sachet Waste Polluting Jakarta: Environmental Groups

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A ‘brand audit’ acted out by a number of environmental organizations conducted a full week from June 12 up to June 19 along rivers and coastal areas in Jakarta found a huge amount of sachet packaging waste from five corporations. 

This brand audit determined that sachet wastes were dominated by Unilever followed by Indofood, Wings, Santos Jaya, and Mayora. 

Sachet Pollution In Jakarta Rivers, Estuaries, and Sea

The Indonesian Plastic Bag Diet Movement was behind the brand audit across multiple regions in Jakarta namely the coastal regions of the Thousand Islands (Kepulauan Seribu) specifically on Rambut Island. Meanwhile, the audit at Muara Angke, Muara Baru, and Muara Kali Adem were acted out by the River Warrior. 

Brand audit activities were also carried out in the Ciliwung River in the TB Simatupang to Condet Bridge segment by involving other communities that focus on river sustainability, which was carried out by taking samples of sachet waste at each location of at least 500 pieces of garbage floating in bodies of water, entangled in branches or tree trunks or those on the beach and buried on the banks of rivers.

Gathering up the trash floating in the water, this team had to use boats and nets to catch the floating garbage and some were also documented by recording the floating garbage.

Aeshnina Azzahra Aqilani, the coordinator of River warrior, explained that the audit was carried out to find out which producers caused the most pollution in Jakarta waters. The GIDKP team found that most of Indofood's sachet waste was found on Pulau Rambut.

"The most common types of Indomie waste were found during the hair island clean-up activity that we carried out on the week of June 12, 2022," said Rahyang Nusantara. The sachet waste that was stranded on Rambut Island mostly came from waterways or rivers from mainland Jakarta.

Other Brand Audit activities were carried out at the Muara Kali Adem to the Kali Angke estuary on Tuesday, June 14, 2022, it was found that there was a lot of sachet waste from Unilever products.

"Many Unilever sachet waste was found floating in Kali Adem, estuary Angke to Island G, and was even found stuck in the branches and roots of mangroves," said Alaika Rahmatullah who participated in the Brand Audit activity.

The Brand audit team traveled down Kali Adem, Muara Angke to Pulau G on Tuesday, June 14, with 10 River Warrior volunteers and found that plastic waste stuck in mangrove trees could pose a serious threat because a large number of coastal wildlife could potentially consume the plastic food packaging.

On Sunday, June 19, the Sungai Nusantara Expedition team was still carrying out a Brand Audit activity in Muara Baru. The clean-up at Ciliwung Condet was attended by the Ciliwung Condet Caring Community, Ciliwung Institute and Ecoton found that more than 1000 tree trunks were still wrapped in plastic waste.

"Many Unilever sachet waste was found stuck in tree branches, buried on the banks and floating in rivers," said Prigi Arisandi.

Jakarta Administration Answers Ecoton Subpoena

The summons by Ecoton was addressed to President Jokowi, Governors of Jakarta and West Java as state officials responsible for the management of Ciliwung and its rivers have not been officially answered but there has been active communication between Ecoton and the Jakarta Environmental Agency.

"According to a source at the Jakarta government, an answer is currently being prepared to respond to the Ecoton summons," said Kholid Basyaiban, an Ecoton environmental lawyer explaining that there has been communication between the DKI Provincial Government and Ecoton.

Ecoton senior researcher Daru Setyorini explained that the Waste Management Law No.18/2008 stipulates that producers must be responsible for the waste they produce if the waste cannot be processed naturally. This can be interpreted as forcing the responsibilities of Unilever, Wings, Indofood, Mayora, and Santos Jaya to actively clean and manage their wastes. 

He argues that the long-term solution is to see producers halt the production of sachets because sachets are categorized as residual waste that cannot be recycled. Sachets include multilayer packaging, there are four layers of plastic in one sachet such as aluminum foil, EVOH polymer, PP, and laminated plastic whereas the plastic recycling process must process wastes based on the type of polymer,

TEMPO.CO

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