Bogor, a city of 1 million located just outside of Jakarta, has taken an important step in the country’s war against plastic waste by becoming the first city in Indonesia to officially ban plastic bags at all modern retail stores and shopping centers
The ban, which has been socialized by the Bogor government over the last few months, officially went into effect yesterday. And, like so many other government initiatives, the ban has been given a strained but amusing acronym to identify it — Botak, which literally means “bald” but in this case is short for Bogor Tanpa Kantong Plastik (Bogor without plastic bags).
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“Today officially marks the start of Botak Day in the City of Bogor,” Bogor Mayor Bima Arya said at an event to celebrate the beginning of the ban yesterday as quoted by Pikiran Rakyat.
The ban is the result of a mayoral regulation passed by Bima earlier this year. The mayor said the first day went well, with most shops ready to provide customers with environmentally-friendly alternatives to plastic including bags made out of cassava fiber and those made out of recycled materials. The reusable, eco-friendly bags available at most stores cost between IDR10,000 (US$0.70) to IDR12,000.
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Bima said that the policy, which currently only applies to modern retail stores and shopping centers, such as malls and supermarkets, was not completely implemented at all applicable stores as some were still using up their existing stock of plastic bags. He said there would be a brief grace period but that those stores that did not comply with the ban would soon be hit with sanctions including fines or even the revocation of their retail licenses.
The mayor said the next step was to implement the ban at traditional markets, a policy that he said would be phased in over the next year so as not to overly burden small and medium size retailers.
According to Bogor’s environmental office, the city used to produce up to 1.8 tons of plastic waste per day just from shopping centers, so the hope is that the ban will help greatly lighten that load.
Bogor is the first but will soon be joined by other cities in Indonesia preparing their own plastic bag bans. The cities of Banjarmasin and Balikpapan are currently preparing their own regulations and Bali’s capital of Denpasar announced plans to ban plastic bag use starting on January 1 of next year.
Indonesia holds the unfortunate distinction of being the world’s second largest producer of plastic marine waste in the world, behind only China. A great deal of that waste comes from the 9.8 billion (!) plastic bags the country is estimated to use each year.
At last year’s World Oceans Summit in Bali, government officials pledged to spend US$1 billion a year to dramatically reduce the amount of plastic and other waste polluting its waters including support for new industries that produce biodegradable materials such as cassava and seaweed as plastic alternatives as well as incentives for local governments seeking to decrease plastic bag use.
