Waiting for Government Action for Plastic Waste Free Rivers

Nusantara Rivers Expedition motorcycle

Community participation in efforts to prevent environmental pollution through complaints.

Knowing the pollution and damage to the river in the vicinity, the community must actively participate in monitoring, because the active role of the community in protecting and managing the environment is regulated as protected in Law Number 32 Concerning Environmental Protection and Management article 70. In addition, the community can also see the Minister of Environment Number P. 22/MENLHK/SETJEN/SET.1/3/2017 Concerning Procedures for Management of Complaints of Alleged Environmental Pollution and Damage, guided by these two regulations, the community can actively make complaints by coming directly to the Environmental Service office verbally or through written complaint letters regarding environmental pollution according to the complaint mechanism contained in the regulation.

 

Plastic waste entangled in tree branches on the banks of the river

Government Effective Efforts to prevent the rate of waste contamination and domestic waste.

Thru a survey of people’s perspectives about rivers in Indonesia over a period of almost 1 year spread across 30 provinces in 166 cities and filled with around 1,188 respondents, proving that the government must immediately make concrete and serious efforts by:

1.      Expanding waste management services to remote villages, the government has built 3R TPS in every village supported by garbage facilities (garbage drop-off points) in remote villages and communities living along rivers:

2.      Resolving overlapping river management authorities, it is time for the government to cut bureaucracy and overlap between river management agencies so that the river management budget and management agency performance can be maximized;

3.      Focusing the APBD and APBN budgets for river management, the government must immediately increase the budget in each region for river management and waste management by maximizing waste management and waste facilities in every densely populated area;

4.      Create a breakthrough pollution complaint system that is easy, efficient, and systematic, it is necessary to educate the public about procedures for making pollution complaints, so that the community has no difficulty in carrying out advocacy efforts if they find an environmental violation;

5.      Maximizing environmental law enforcement so that a deterrent effect arises, the government must seriously take action against companies/industries that dump their waste into rivers, make efficient and concrete breakthroughs in conducting surveillance such as (installing CCTV at every outlet and waste generation point, installing special monitoring devices waste of companies that can work for 24 hours), revoke environmental permits for companies that pollute;

6.      Encouraging companies/industry to comply with environmental regulations, the EPR (company responsibility) efforts of producers producing plastic waste must be maximized immediately so that no more plastic waste leaks into rivers;