EKONID holds Digital Trade Mission on Waste Management and Reycling

25.06.2021

On June 14-18, 2021, EKONID held a Digital Trade Mission Indonesia – Waste Management and Recycling Technology solutions for German and Indonesian stakeholders from the private sector.

Supported by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and in partnership with BlackForest Solutions GmbH, German RETech Partnership e.V. (RETech), and Nuernberg Chamber of Commerce & Industry, the event drew over 80 top-level executives as well as experts from the Indonesian and German waste management and recycling sector.

The trade mission comprised of a country briefing, followed by a seminar on technical developments and two days of B2B meetings. The seminar, held on June 15, was opened by Jan Rönnfeld, the Managing Director of EKONID, who noted the increased awareness for waste management and recycling among Indonesian stakeholders. According to data from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK), in 2019, Indonesia is only able to reduce, reuse, and recycle 14.58% of its waste, while 34.60% are managed – as in dumped in landfills or incinerated – thereby bringing the national waste management to 49.18%. By 2020, this has increased to 16.23% in waste reduction and 34.60% in waste management for a total of 54.15%. By 2025, Indonesia wants at least 30% of all waste reduced, reused and recycled, and all of the remaining 70% managed.

To reach that goal the Indonesian Ministry of the Environment has issued Regulation No. 75/2019, which obliges producers of food, cosmetics and other consumer goods to reduce the waste generated by their own products by 30 percent by 2029, in particular through recycling and reuse. This affects packaging made of plastic, aluminum (cans), glass and paper. From 2030 on, the distribution and use of plastic straws, plastic bags and disposable polystyrene packaging will be banned completely.

The implementation timeline for 2021 calls for the development take-back concepts of packaging materials and the strengthening of collaborations with waste banks and other collection points. In 2022, pilot projects and baseline studies are to be conducted. From 2023 on, implementation of the developed concepts is to begin in order to achieve the government's targets by 2029 at the latest. 

Locally based consumer goods producers are actively driving the availability and use of recycled materials. The establishment of the Indonesia Packaging Recovery Organization (IPRO) was important step towards Extended Producer Responsibility. IPRO is to organize the collection of packaging materials as well as to develop new packaging concepts that can be recycled in a simple manner. 

It may be noted that KfW, the German Development Bank, was also present in the event to introduce the recently signed German-Indonesian climate initiative, for which the German Government is providing 2.5 billion Euros in loans for green infrastructure projects during the next five years.  

Meanwhile, EUWELLE Environmental Technology GmbH was also present to provide its perspective regarding the waste-management technology and recycling sector in Indonesia following its recent appointment to design, build and operate an 1,800 tons-per-day (tpd) Regional Waste Management and Final Processing Site (TPPAS) in Nambo, West Java.  

In total, eight German companies to part in the event and presented their technologies. More than 50 B2B meetings were conducted in the following two days after the seminar.  

EKONID would like to thank all the stakeholder who participated in the event. We hope this seminar has provided even more perspectives to the waste-management and recycling sector in Indonesia and assist in the effort to reduce the impact of climate change.