Businessman imprisoned for importing waste
Businessman imprisoned for importing waste
JAKARTA (JP): The North Jakarta district court sentenced a businessman to 15 months in jail yesterday for illegally importing waste into Indonesia.
The court also fined Herdy Wetan, Director of PT Duta Dynasty, Rp 5 million (US$2,300), or six months in jail in default, for smuggling 24.38 kilograms of plastic waste from Hong Kong.
Herdy said he would appeal.
The team of judges said Herdy was guilty of importing a certain type of plastic waste which is forbidden under a 1992 decree issued by the ministry of trade.
Herdy, 40, was also found guilty of falsifying documents. He claimed to have imported 750 bags of reground vinyl pallet -- a raw material used in plastics -- weighing 17,250 kilograms, when the containers were actually carrying plastic scraps packed into 1,060 bags weighing a total of 24.38 kilograms.
The accusations were dismissed by Herdy, who said in his defense statement that he was unaware of the actual contents of the containers and merely believed what was written on the import documents. He also said that he had all the necessary legal requirements.
Government prosecutor I Made Sudama initially pressed for an 18-month sentence and fines.
Sudama told reporters that the verdict was favorable to scavengers who tend to suffer at the hands of imported waste.
"Presently the case is for the benefit of social concerns. No environmental factors have been considered because expert witnesses from the Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal) and the ministries of industry and of trade have asserted said that there were no toxins in the plastic waste," he told reporters.
The reading of the verdict was attended yesterday by environmental activists, some 30 scavengers from the Society of Scavengers, a number of people from the Legal Aid Foundation and from the Jakarta Social Institute.
According to the scavenger's leader Gondo, imported waste, which is cheaper because it goes directly from the port to industries which reuse it, greatly reduces the daily earnings of scavengers.
"Industries are reluctant to buy from us with the presence of imports, so we have to cut down our price from about Rp 250 per kilogram of garbage to around Rp 50," he told The Jakarta Post.
On average a scavenger can collect 25 to 30 kg of garbage daily.
The container belonging to PT Duta is only one of the 14 others containing waste, whose presence at the Tanjung Priok port and caused protests from environmental activists early last year.
Azas Tigor from the Jakarta Social Institute said the other containers have mysteriously disappeared and that no one knows of their whereabouts. (pwn)