"The (KKP) should synergize with the Environmental Affairs and Forestry Ministry, the Trade Ministry, and the Industry Ministry to make sure that existing regulations are optimally implemented and familiarized in the public," Abdul Halim, executive director of the Maritime Study Center for Humanity, said here on Thursday.
The ministry should also establish cooperation with industries to draft a road map to reduce plastic waste, he added.
He also suggested that the government should also offer incentives to industries applying plastic free-trade or business innovation.
It takes more than 500 years to degrade plastic, he explained, adding that plastic use should therefore be reduced in order to prevent plastic waste from polluting the ocean.
Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti recently called for a stop of single-use plastic products, in order to help the government achieve its target of reducing 70 percent of plastic waste in the ocean by 2025.
"I call on the ladies and gentlemen to stop using single-use plastic products," she noted.
If plastic waste is not reduced, there would be more plastic waste than fish in ocean by 2030, she added.
She expressed her concern that Indonesia is the second largest contributor of plastic waste in ocean.
Meanwhile, Vice President M Jusuf Kalla on Nov 23, 2018, revealed that the government has planned to reduce plastic use by applying disincentive and imposing sanction.
The ongoing deliberation to reduce plastic waste also concerned technology and plastic use reduction stages, according to Kalla.
Disposable plastic bags, plastic straws, styrofoam, and plastic bottles are widely used in Indonesia, which is an oil-producing country and the world`s largest archipelagic nation, with a population of some 260 million.
Reporting by M Razi Rahman, Fardah Assegaf
Editing by Suharto
Reporter: Antara
Editor: Suharto
Copyright © ANTARA 2018
