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With the Islamic month of Ramadan now over, a familiar sight has returned to the streets of daytime Jakarta: street vendors serving up chicken porridge, and everyone from office workers to delivery drivers perched on plastic stools around the steaming carts, digging into a bowl of the congee-like breakfast staple.
As with most other street food in the bustling Indonesian capital, bubur ayam, as it’s known, is served in a ceramic bowl with a stainless steel spoon, which are washed after use for the next customer. Get it to go, however, and it’s ladled into a Styrofoam container lined with a plastic sheet, bundled into a plastic bag with a plastic spoon.
Played out countless times every morning throughout the country, this familiar vignette is a good illustration of how Indonesia has the capacity to go big on the least-practised aspect of the “3 Rs,” said Tiza Mafira: the “reuse” part of the “reduce-reuse-recycle” mantra.
Tiza is the director of the Indonesia Plastic Bag Diet Movement, a civil society initiative that aims to get people to cut back on their plastic use through the 3 Rs.
“In reality, reuse is already a part of Indonesia’s traditional wisdom,” she said, pointing to the people who take the time to have their bubur ayam on the sidewalk.
She also cited the example of the water gallons used in coolers in homes and offices. There’s a thriving market in the country of vendors collecting empty gallons, cleaning them and refilling them with drinking water, then selling them at a lower price than a new, factory-filled gallon.
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The road map familiarises people with the concept of reuse before recycling, reinforcing the idea that items should be used multiple times before being discarded and recycled.
Tiza Mafira, director, Indonesia Plastic Bag Diet Movement
These and myriad other examples are already familiar to the public in Indonesia, yet the concept of reuse in waste reduction is the least understood compared to reducing and recycling, Tiza said.
That’s why her movement is now working with the Ministry of Environment to develop a “reuse road map” with step-by-step guidance on how reuse practices can be better integrated into the wider economy. The ultimate goal, she said, is to expand reuse across industries so that it’s widely adopted and becomes mainstream.
“The goal is to support our transition to a circular economy and prioritise reuse as the second step in the waste management hierarchy,” Tiza said at the launch of the road map in February. “The road map familiarises people with the concept of reuse before recycling, reinforcing the idea that items should be used multiple times before being discarded and recycled.”
Drowning in plastic
The government has also identified reuse as an integral part of Indonesia’s battle against plastic waste, which has become a serious problem. Indonesia is one of the world’s largest contributors to the plastic pollution problem in the oceans, driven by population growth, excessive plastic production, and consumption patterns that rely on mostly single-use plastic packaging.
Each year, the country produces approximately 7.8 million metric tons of plastic waste. Around 4.9 million metric tons of this is mismanaged — either going uncollected, disposed of in open dump sites, or leaked from improperly managed landfills.
Up to 1.29 million metric tons end up in the ocean each year, accounting for a tenth of global marine plastic waste.
Plastic also clogs up the nation’s rivers, with four of them — the Brantas, Ciliwung, Citarum and Progo — ranking among the 20 most polluted rivers in the world.
“If extraordinary efforts are not made, plastic waste will become an even greater threat to the environment, public health, and Indonesia’s ability to meet [Sustainable Development Goals],” said Vinda Damayanti Ansjar, the environment ministry official in charge of recovering polluted land.
Reuse before recycle
With plastic waste piling up in rivers and oceans, Indonesia needs a paradigm shift in waste management, experts say. They note that while recycling has long been the default strategy, investing in reuse could be a more effective and sustainable approach.
In the waste management hierarchy of the 3 Rs, reduce comes first to prevent waste from being created in the first place. If waste can’t be avoided, reuse should be prioritised. Only when packaging is no longer usable should it be recycled.
Yet despite this, 82 per cent of investments in plastic waste management, amounting to US$155 billion worldwide, go toward downstream solutions as recycling, according to a 2024 report by The Circulate Initiative and International Finance Corporation.
Refill and reuse solutions received just US$8 billion, or 4 per cent, it added.
This overemphasis on recycling is misguided, as it risks diverting funds toward false solutions like “chemical recycling,” which the plastic industry has been pushing hard as a new technological fix for plastic waste, said Mayang Azurin, Asia-Pacific deputy director of campaigns at the NGO Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).
Chemical recycling refers to breaking down plastic waste into its basic chemical components using a combination of methods such as heat, pressure, depleted oxygen, catalysts, and solvents. The goal is to then convert these components either back into new plastics or into fuels.
However, despite industry claims, many of these chemical recycling processes result in the production of fuels rather than new plastics. This means the plastic waste is ultimately transformed into substances that are burned for energy, releasing greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the environment.
New proposals for chemical recycling have emerged in Australia, the European Union, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the US, increasingly supported by favourable legislation.
“They want to push it to the end of the cycle, downstream [recycle], so that they can keep producing plastic,” Azurin told Mongabay on the sidelines of a UN conference on plastic pollution in Bangkok last year.
That’s why activists are calling for greater investment in reuse.
“Recycling alone is not enough to solve the plastic pollution crisis,” said Vinda, the Indonesian official. “By reusing, we can prevent waste generation at the source and reduce the demand for virgin plastic, which improves resource efficiency.”
Infrastructure needed
To develop the reuse road map, the Indonesia Plastic Bag Diet Movement and the Ministry of Environment conducted a study that looked at the two key characteristics of reuse culture as practised in Indonesia: the refill system and the return system.
In the refill system, consumers own and bring their own packaging for refilling, either at home or at designated stations like supermarkets or kiosks, eliminating the need for disposable packaging.
For example, instead of buying rice in prepacked plastic packaging, consumers bring their own containers when shopping at the market. They can also refill products like detergent at home by buying refill pouches.
In the return system, consumers buy products in reusable packaging, such as glass bottles or tin cans, and after use return the empty containers to collection points to be cleaned, refilled and reused by the producer or retailer.
To promote the return system, there are key elements that must be developed, said Rahyang Nusantara, deputy director of the plastic diet movement. One is reuse hubs, which are collection points for reusable containers, similar to drop-off points for recyclables.
Another is reverse logistics, a system to transport used packaging back to consumers for cleaning and refilling. There’s also the need for standardised cleaning facilities that meet hygiene and safety requirements, and for co-packing and co-filling facilities where the task of refilling and repackaging can be done at scale.
Public awareness of the importance of reuse over recycling also needs to be strengthened, Rahyang said. All these will need regulatory support, he added.
And while existing legislation on waste management already includes reuse as one of the solutions to plastic waste, additional regulations at the national and local will still be required, Rahyang said.
Economic opportunities
Despite the benefits of reuse, some businesses have expressed concern that making it a primary focus for consumers will require a high up-front investment on their part.
“Many stakeholders fear that shifting from single-use plastic to reuse will harm the economy,” said Bisuk Abraham Sisungkunon, the head of sustainable development research at Daya Makara, a consultancy associated with the University of Indonesia.
However, case studies show that over time, cost savings from reduced packaging production and consumer loyalty can make reuse a profitable model. An analysis by Daya Makara shows that reuse can drive economic growth by creating new business opportunities, such as reusable packaging production and cleaning and logistics services, Bisuk said. Reuse-driven economic growth will exceed any contraction from reduced plastic consumption, he added.
There are also the additional benefits of reduced environmental and social damage, including air pollution from burning plastic waste, Bisuk said. When these are tallied, the net economic gain comes out to 4 million rupiah (about US$240) per metric ton of avoided waste.
If reuse is expanded according to the road map, the economic benefits will be even higher, Bisuk added.
To make reuse mainstream, businesses, policymakers and consumers must work together, Tiza said. With the right incentives, regulations and infrastructure, Indonesia can lead the way in reducing plastic waste and transition to a truly circular economy, she added.
“We hope that Indonesia’s reuse ecosystem will grow and thrive,” she said, “not only to prevent waste but also to transform supply chains, boost the economy, and provide a low-emission environmental solution for a healthier planet.”
This story was published with permission from Mongabay.com.
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