Key policies and governance approach

Indonesia has passed several laws for the control and management of air pollution in the country [11]. Included is the Environment Management Act 41/1999 which mandates the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and periodically monitor air quality and analyse the results [9], [13]. Indonesia has also put in place various regulations and fiscal policies for air quality management including fuel taxes, support for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers, odd-even congestion charging, and public transport subsidies for low-income households [9]. To date, much of the focus has been on the transportation sector. For example, in 2017, the Government of Indonesia required that all gasoline-fueled vehicles adopt Euro-4 fuel standards by September 2018. Euro-4 is an internationally recognized fuel standard that was initially adopted by the EU, which demands the use of high-quality, cleaner fuels with a sulfur content that is no higher than 50 parts per million (ppm). This is ten times more stringent than the Euro-2 fuel standards that had previously been used in Indonesia. Additionally, the Government of Indonesia has also stepped up its efforts to combat air pollution from peat and forest fires, including through the establishment of the Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG) [10].

Concerning water pollution, the most important regulation on water quality control in Indonesia is the Government Regulation No. 82/2001 on Management of Water Quality and Control over Water Pollution [14], which establishes the framework for implementation of water pollution control, including aspects of prevention, protection, and recovery [15].

The most prominent law impacting Solid Waste Management (SWM) in Indonesia is the Waste Management Act (No. 18/2008), which established the foundation for improvements to the country’s SWM system [7]. The Act makes it illegal to operate open dump sites. Since this Law was created, there have been many waste management laws and regulation rules introduced at national, regional, and city levels, with some specifically addressing plastic pollution [16]. This includes Government Regulation No. 81/2012 which addressed management of household and household-like waste; Ministerial Decree No. 13/2012  on Guidelines for Implementation of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle through Waste Bank; Ministerial Decree No. 59/2016 establishing leachate standards; Ministerial Decree No. 70/2016 establishing emission standards for incineration of Solid Waste; and Presidential Decree No.97/2017 on National Policy & Strategy on Management of Household Waste and Household-Like Waste (JAKSTRANAS), which sets the targets of 30% waste reduction and 70% waste handling by 2025 [7], [16].

In 2017, the Indonesian Ocean Policy and Indonesia’s Plan of Action on Marine Plastic Debris 2017-2025 were developed. Indonesia’s National Action Plan on Marine Debris sets the goal of reducing marine debris leakage by 70% by 2025 relative to business as usual, using five pillars of action: (i) improving behavioral change, (ii) reducing land-based leakage, (iii) reducing sea-based leakage, (iv) reducing plastics production and use, and (v) enhancing funding mechanisms, policy reform, and law enforcement [7], [8].

Successes and remaining challenges

Although many regulations have been put in place for air quality management at the national and municipal levels in Indonesia, many challenges exist in their implementation [13]. Challenges include limited monitoring and reporting capacities; a need for better delineation of institutional responsibilities; and a lack of credible incentives for low-emission vehicles and clean technologies [9], [13]. Thus, there are strong arguments in favour of updating and adjusting some of these regulations to establish a stronger legislative basis for more stringent air pollution control [13]. At the same time, carefully designed fiscal policy instruments could be used to tackle air pollution and adverse health impacts from the transport sector. Complementary measures are also required to address the remaining challenges including a robust pollution reporting system incorporating warning mechanisms when concentrations exceed guideline values [9].

In addressing the challenge of water pollution, Indonesia is facing issues related to the limited availability of technology, financial resources, and capacity [5]. One such issue is that water quality monitoring data is often insufficient, low coverage, low quality, and not consolidated [5], [17]. As a result, the true extent of the harm caused by water pollution in Indonesia is unknown. Although there are more than 1,600 monitoring stations in the country, less than 30% of the population live within a 5 km radius of a monitoring station. Additionally, the stations are predominately located in urban areas, thus the exposure to pollution for rural areas - including those affected by industrial parks, mines, and agriculture - is less known. Pollution from mining, industry and palm oil processing plants can be very harmful to human health, however, their impacts are localised and without stations close to hotspots, it is difficult to discern the impacts from aggregated water quality data [5].

Further, even where water quality is monitored, capacities to correctly analyse data are low, available data are incomplete, and the selection of measured surface water quality parameters does not allow for an analysis on the impact of industrial and mining activities on water quality. While pollution is increasing and becoming more complex, the overall number of parameters sampled have been reduced from 66 in 2015 to just 29 in 2019—and relevant parameters such as mercury and various heavy metals have been taken out. This occurred as the responsibility to sample water quality was transferred from provincial governments to MoEF in 2018; due to a lack of capacity, the total number of monitored parameters was reduced. Other relevant water quality parameters, such as all banned B3 and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are not measured. Institutional capacity to sample is also low [5] and most data is collected manually, which can lead to data quality issues and delays in compiling data [17]. In fact, the analysis for the same sample in different institutions has been found to differ from one to another [5].

To address solid waste management, national and subnational laws have been passed that assign many agencies the responsibility of policy implementation and enforcement. However, enforcement needs to be significantly strengthened [16]. For instance, enforcement of regulations within the local governments is largely absent due to a lack of sufficient funding and high recurrent expenditures associated with collection and landfill maintenance [7]. Moreover, recycling in Indonesia largely remains an informal sector activity with the informal waste collectors not regulated and their welfare not guaranteed, and formal recycling systems capturing less than 5% of the waste generated in the country. If the informal sector can be properly recognized and well compensated, they can largely contribute to the waste collection, recycling capacity and the overall policy execution [16].

Initiatives and Development Plans

In 2021, the non-governmental organisations (NGO) Nexus3 Foundation from Indonesia and Arnika from the Czech Republic launched a new project aiming to fight industrial pollution in Indonesia. The goal of the three-year project (2021-2024), which is co-funded by the European Union (EU), is to establish an NGO network for pollution monitoring in the country and thereby boost the role of civil society in preventing toxic pollution and its impact on human health. The experts from this project see the possible solution in the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR), which is already used in Europe, as a tool for Indonesia to address pollution [18].

Indonesia’s Waste Bank Program is one of the efforts made by the government to overcome the problem of solid waste, which involves the establishment of waste banks in communities across the country. The Waste Bank Program has been implemented in various regions of Indonesia and has been proven to contribute to the improvement of environmental quality [19]. A reported 11,330 waste banks exist across the country, which enable community members a location to deposit their recyclable waste for a reward (either cash or products – gold has also been used). In this scheme, individuals get to “bank” the value of the waste they deliver. The deposited materials are then sold to scrap dealers (pengepul) for processing. In Indonesia, the private sector has also supported waste banks. For example, Unilever has provided resources to some waste banks. The Indonesian government has also reportedly endorsed the waste bank concept as “currently the best way of dealing with waste across the country” [7].  

Indonesia has been actively involved in several global efforts to address plastic pollution. For example, in 2017, Indonesia joined UNEP’s #CleanSeas campaign to eliminate major sources of marine litter by cutting plastic waste in 25 coastal cities and reducing marine litter by 70% by 2025 [16].

In 2020, Indonesia’s National Plastic Action Partnership (NPAP) released a roadmap which sets forth recommended actions to unlock financing needed to reduce marine plastic leakage by 70% by 2025 and to achieve a circular economy for plastic by 2040. The roadmap provides a framework to incubate and scale up innovation, close the operational financing gap through reforms and capacity development, and enable capital investments through innovative financing approaches and integrated investments [20].