As Waste Mountains Grow, It's Time for Indonesia to Implement Eco Modulation

Indonesia’s plastic waste problem is increasingly alarming. According to data from the Ministry of Environment, in 2025 Indonesia will generate around 10 million tonnes of plastic waste per year. If compared to the National Monument, its volume is equivalent to approximately two such structures.

Throughout the 2020–2025 period, plastic waste generation increased by about 20 percent. However, this rise was not matched by growth in the recycling rate for plastic packaging.

On the other hand, public awareness of reducing waste generation through decreased plastic consumption and waste sorting remains relatively low. The condition increasingly burdens waste management infrastructure and triggers a landfill capacity crisis in more than 500 districts and cities across Indonesia. Up to 2026, as many as 273 landfills have also been subject to administrative sanctions due to poor waste management.

To overcome the landfill capacity crisis, the acceleration of plastic waste reduction must be carried out from upstream to downstream. On the upstream side, the industry needs to implement Design for Recycling in the packaging design process. Meanwhile, on the downstream side, an increase in recycling rates must be encouraged systematically and massively.

Data from the 2024 Recycling Rate Index released by Sustainable Waste Indonesia together with the Indonesian Plastic Recyclers shows that the recycling rate in Indonesia reached 22 percent. This achievement is categorised as moderate and is equivalent to Hungary. However, high recycling rates only occur in two categories that are the mainstay of recycling actors, namely PET bottle packaging at 71 percent and rigid HDPE packaging at 60 percent. Rigid HDPE packaging is generally used for soap bottles, shampoo, cleaning fluids, jerry cans, and food containers.

Conversely, the recycling rates for rigid PP, flexible monolayer, and flexible multilayer packaging remain low. Rigid PP packaging has a recycling rate of around 28 percent and is widely used for plastic cups, food containers, cutlery, and household appliances.

Meanwhile, flexible monolayer packaging has only reached a recycling rate of 19 percent and is generally used for plastic bags, plastic sacks, and food wrappers. The lowest recycling rate is found in flexible multilayer packaging, which only reaches around 0.20 percent. In fact, this type of packaging is widely used for sachet products, instant noodles, pouch packaging, and various other food products.

The current high recycling rate for PET bottles is the result of a long journey undertaken by the bottled drinking water industry. In 1993, the industry built a bottle collection system involving consumers, distributors, and return to the factory. At that time, PET bottles had no economic value and their recycling rate was still zero percent.

By providing an incentive of Rp 5 for small PET bottles and Rp 10 for large PET bottles, the public began to be encouraged to collect used bottles. This step was then followed by the development of the recycling supply chain through joint research with recycling actors until finally PET bottles became a commodity with economic value as they are today.

To increase the recycling rate of various other types of packaging, the implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility as stipulated in the Minister of Environment Regulation Number 75 of 2019 needs to be strengthened. One important instrument that should be included in the implementation of EPR is the application of the eco modulation principle.