Our finding shows that plastic debris is dominantly entering the Jakarta Bay, with Styrofoam as the most abundant in this categoryJakarta (ANTARA) - Most of the 59 percent plastic waste entering the waters of Jakarta Bay daily is Styrofoam, trademarked brand of polystyrene, monitoring research conducted by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences' (LIPI's) Oceanography Research Center has reported. A paper on "Major Sources and Monthly Variations in the Release of Land-derived Marine Debris from the Greater Jakarta Area" in Scientific Reports journal, by LIPI's researchers, Muhammad Reza Cordova and Intan Suci Nurhati, has confirmed this.
"Our finding shows that plastic debris is dominantly entering the Jakarta Bay, with Styrofoam as the most abundant in this category," they noted in their research paper that ANTARA quoted here on Thursday.
The monthly waste monitoring study, whose results were published on December 10, 2019 identified six kinds of waste and 19 of plastic wastes from nine estuaries in Jakarta as well as in its neighboring areas of Tangerang and Bekasi throughout June 2015 to 2016.
The waste flowing into the waters across the three regions reaches 8.32 tons a day, which was eight to 16 times lower if compared to estimation number of model-based studies, researchers estimated.
As Styrofoam is used a lot in food packaging, it is imperative to systematically decrease the use of plastic, especially the polystyrene type, in Jakarta and its neighboring cities, Cordova said in Jakarta Thursday.
Despite the law restricting plastic use signed in Jakarta, Tangerang and Bekasi since March 2019, its use in traditional markets and food sale through mobile application order is still high.
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Translator: Virna P Setyorini, Suwanti
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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