ENVIRONTMENTAL PROTECTION FROM POLLUTION:

MICROPLASTIC WASTE MANAGEMENT IN OVERCOMING

WATER POLLUTION BY HARMONIZING LEGAL PRODUCTS
AND THEIR IMPLEMENTATION IN INDONESIA
By Nency Dina Kharisma // 20160610411
nencydina18@gmail.com // +62 811 9531 618
International Program for Law and Sharia, Faculty of Law, Universitas Muhammadiyah
Yogyakarta, Jalan Lingkar Selatan, Taman Tirto, Kasihan, Bantul, DI Yogyakarta. 55183

Abstract
There are lots of regulations governing the environment in Indonesia such as Law No. 32 year
2009 on Environmental Protection and Management (UUPPLH), One of them is Regulations
related to the Water Pollutions. Although there are legal products that regulates in the water sector
but the pollution still exists. Along with the development of the countries, decreasing the quality
of water in Indonesia. One of the reasons on why the quality of water are decreased is the using of
plastics in Indonesia. Mostly people using plastics in their daily activity such as packaging,
shopping, mineral water, trash bag, etc. Indonesian Plastic Industry Associations (INAPLAS) and
Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) stated that plastic waste in Indonesia reach the number of 64
Million Ton per year, while 3,2 Million Ton of plastic disposed to the sea. Plastic that get into the
sea can be composed into small particles called micro plastics with a size of 0,3 – 5 millimeters.
This micro plastics not only make the water get polluted but also endangered the existence of
animals in the sea. This research will discuss analyze water pollution caused by micro plastic waste
and compare between applicable legal product and their implementation. This research will use
normative legal research method and make the library study as primary data.
Keywords: Micro plastic, pollution, environmental protection, water.
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

A. Background
According to the Large Indonesian Language Dictionary (KBBI), the sea is defined as a collection
of saltwater (in large quantities and a large amount) that inundates and divides land over continents
or islands.1
Oceans are the lifeblood of planet earth and mankind. They flow over nearly three-quarters of our
planet, and hold 97% of the planet’s water. The sea, has always been an important natural resource
for humans. Water becomes a suitable medium and provides life to be used by humans for
centuries. At the same time, human activity has transformed life at sea: overfishing, taking in an
unfriendly way to the sea, onshore activities that cause coastal erosion and pollution threaten the
life and habitat of living creatures in the sea.
Today's human activities often have a bad impact on the sea, one reason being due to careless
waste disposal without thinking about the long-term effects of these activities. one of the wastes
that becomes a serious problem in Indonesia is plastic waste. Of the many countries, Indonesia is
in the top second position in terms of donating plastic waste to the ocean. This can be seen
according to Indonesian Plastic Industry Associations (INAPLAS) and Central Bureau of Statistics
(BPS) stated that plastic waste in Indonesia reach the number of 64 Million Ton per year, while
3,2 Million Ton of plastic disposed to the sea.
Due to the lightweight, strong, durable, and affordable prices of plastic, the use of plastic continues
to increase and is very widely used in everyday life. According to his book, Thompson estimates
that up to 10% of the plastic produced ends up in the ocean, survives and accumulates. It also
explains that plastic waste will continue to grow and will eventually lead to Indonesian waters.
Not only that, plastic waste can also decompose into smaller parts with UV light activity and
abrasion resulting from a wave action.
Small or micro plastic will certainly be very dangerous not only for the ecosystem in the sea but
also for humans. Because it is easier to eat by small animals such as fish, shellfish, and other
marine mammals, which of course will end in humans. As was the case recently, turtles died from
consuming plastic waste, then sperm whales found dead were stranded in Wakatobi, Sulawesi with
5.9 kilograms of garbage in their bodies.
Problems regarding plastic waste that have never been completed and the procedures for handling
them have caused the government to issue a legal product, namely Law Number 18 of 2008
concerning Waste Management. So in this paper, the author invites readers to understand the
dangers of micro plastic waste in the sea, to understand the implementation of Law No. 18 of 2008

1
Large Indonesian Language Dictionary (KBBI)
concerning waste management, and the implementation of the Act in overcoming sea pollution
especially caused by garbage micro plastic.

B. Problem Formulation
In this paper there are three kinds of research:
1. Understanding about Micro plastic waste in the ocean
2. Understanding on Law No. 18 Year 2008 About Waste Management
3. Implementation of Law No.18 Year 2008 and Law No.32 Year 2009 in order to
overcoming water pollution caused by Micro plastic

C. Purposes
There are two main points that the writer wants to convey through this paper:
1. Readers can understand the danger of removing plastic waste into the ocean
2. Readers can understand about Law No. 18 Year 2018 About Waste Management
 CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION

A. Micro plastic Waste in Ocean.

Marine waste is a solid object that is processed by humans both directly and indirectly which
is then disposed of or left in the marine environment. One of the marine debris is plastic waste,
where plastic waste represents 60% - 80% of all garbage in the sea which takes a very long time
to decompose. And this micro plastic waste comes from large-sized plastic which is dumped into
the sea and breaks into several parts. In its development, the problem of waste, especially plastic
waste in Indonesia, is increasingly complex when this plastic waste touches our water, sea and
oceans. The final slap for Indonesia was felt when the results of the study were published by
Jenna R. Jambeck entitled Plastic Waste Input from Land into the Ocean and stated that the
potential for plastic waste in the Indonesian ocean in 2015 reached 187.2 million tons / year
In this case it can be said that micro plastic waste is even more dangerous than the larger
types of waste because it can be indirectly digested by marine biota and can accumulate in the
body of the marine biota. This can occur because the size of micro plastic waste is too small to
resemble food for marine biota. Plastic waste can kill animals that are entangled and sink or end
up starving because they cannot digest the substances they eat.
Micro plastic which enters the animal's body can accumulate in the digestive tract and cause
injury due to scratching with the shape of the micro plastic itself. Micro plastic can also
accumulate and inhibit the production of enzymes, which inhibits all processes that require
enzymes. Micro plastic which has entered the body through the digestive tract can move to other
parts of the cell membrane and can enter through the blood. This means micro plastic substances
can move to all organs and accumulate in that place. 2
In addition micro plastic also has the ability to be an intermediary for hazardous chemicals to
enter the body of marine organisms.3 Soluble toxins from plastic when decomposed, pose health
risks to animals, which of course can affect the food chain.
So the truth is that micro plastic waste is not only dangerous for marine biota, but also has a
great influence on the human body. Because when micro plastic enters into the body of small
fish and small fish is eaten by larger fish, and larger fish will be consumed by humans, in the end
humans will also get the effect of the micro plastic, because the content of the micro plastic is
toxic. And what happens if we consume something that has poisonous substances on the body
every day? Of course this will not be good for our body.
Plastic has become one of the most important, practical ingredients, and is popular with
various needs in the world. Its own use has increased 20-fold over the past 50 years and is
predicted to double as much in the next 20 years.4 The World Economic Forum in its report
entitled "The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics" says that by 2050, the

2
Wright J, et al. (2013) A growing role for hypertrophy in senescence
3
Gall & Thompson (2015) The impact of debris on marine life
4
Ivan, “Sampah plastik diprediksi penuhi lautan pada 2050”, https://beritagar.id/artikel/sains-tekno/sampah-plastik-
diprediksi-penuhi-lautan-pada-2050 diakses pada 28 November 2017.
ratio between plastic and fish will reach 1: 15. Of course, if Indonesia does not move to resolve
this chronic problem progressively and comprehensively, it is not impossible that in the next few
years we will displace China to the status of the world's largest plastic garbage polisher.

B. Law No. 18 Year 2018 About Waste Management

In order to fulfill community rights in accordance with the provisions of the 1945
Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia, the government has an obligation to create a good
and healthy environment for citizens. One of its implementations is to create a good
environment for the community.
According to law Number 18 of 2018 Waste is the remainder of human daily activities and
/ or natural processes that are in solid form6. And waste management, namely systematic,
comprehensive and sustainable activities which include the reduction and handling of waste 7.
There are three types of waste managed by this law, namely household waste, household-like
waste, and specific waste 8. Plastic waste here can be categorized as specific waste, because it
meets the requirements of specific waste as stated in article 2 paragraph 4.
The birth of Law Number 18 Year 2018 on the management of original waste is expected
to become a policy reference that accelerates the effectiveness of handling waste management
nationally as well as at the regional government level both provincial and district. The basic
spirit of the birth of this Law is by prioritizing strategies for reducing waste generation and
handling waste that is difficult to decompose by nature, such as plastic. By substantively
mandating the importance of producer responsibility.
However, it is very unfortunate that up to now the enforcement of the Extended Producers
Responsibility rules is in place, which means that there is a disconnect between the government
and producers. Because it is stated in Article 15 of the Law which states that Producers must
manage packaging and / or goods produced which cannot or are difficult to decompose by
natural processes.9 This means that producers in this case are charged in terms of managing
waste used by the community.
The provisions contained in the article are considered very difficult to implement in
Indonesia, considering that technically this is very difficult for producers to collect waste in a
number of cities in Indonesia, which may be mostly from household waste.
Actually, there is nothing wrong with this Act, but the relation to waste management that is
charged to producers is a separate obstacle to realizing the ideals of this law even though if we
look carefully, producers can do well, namely through Deposit Refund System. But of course,

5
World Economic Forum, “The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics”, World Economic Forum (2016), hlm. 14.
6
Article 1 point 1 Law No.18 of 2018
7
Article 1 point 5 Law No.18 of 2018
8
Article 2 point 1 Law No.18 of 2018
9
Article 15 Law No.18 of 2018
 when the government wants to launch this, a deeper regulation is needed regarding the Deposit
Refund System itself.

C. Implementation of Law No.18 Year 2008 and Law No.32 Year 2009 in order to
overcoming water pollution caused by Micro plastic

In Law No. 32/2009 concerning Environmental Protection and Management article 1 point 14
states that Environmental Pollution is the entry or inclusion of living things, substances, energy,
and / or other components into the environment by human activities so as to exceed the standard
predetermined quality10. In this case Water is a form of physical environment, where if water is
polluted, this will certainly have a major impact on the survival of living things.
While in Law 18 of 2008 in article 29 it has been stated that every person is prohibited from
managing waste which causes environmental pollution and / or damage. 11 Which means that in
this case anyone who intentionally disposes of garbage goes to the sea and causes pollution, then
he should be sanctioned properly.
Sanctions that apply if a person or group of people violates the sea is also regulated in Law No.18
of 2008. There are three types of sanctions listed in the two laws:
1. Administrative Sanctions 12: regulated in article 32 of Law No.18 of 2008, namely there
are three types of administrative sanctions, namely government coercion, forced money,
and / or revocation of licenses
2. Civil Sanctions 13: regulated in articles 33 and 34 of Law No.18 of 2008
Especially for civil sanctions, there are two choices, namely a dispute outside the court and
a dispute in the court. If the dispute is sufficiently resolved by deliberation and reaches a
consensus word, civil penalties are carried out outside the court, but if the perpetrator
resolves the dispute with deliberation and does not meet the meeting point, it means that
the case should be brought to court.
3. Criminal Sanctions14: regulated in article 40 and article 41 of Law No.18 of 2008 which
reads
(1) Waste managers who are unlawfully and intentionally carry out waste management
activities by not paying attention to norms, standards, procedures, or criteria that can lead
to public health problems, security disturbances, environmental pollution and / or
environmental damage are threatened with imprisonment most a short period of 4 (four)
years and a maximum of 10 (ten) years and a fine of at least Rp100,000,000.00 (one
hundred million rupiahs) and a maximum of Rp.5,000,000,000.00 (five billion rupiahs).

10
Article 1 Point 14 Law No.32 of 2009
11
Article 29 Law No.18 of 2018
12
Article 32 Law No.18 of 2018
13
Article 33 and Article 34 of Law No.18 of 2018
14
Article 40 and Article 41 of Law No.18 of 2018
(2) If the criminal offense as referred to in paragraph (1) results in a dead person or serious
injury, the waste manager is threatened with imprisonment for a minimum of 5 (five) years
and a maximum of 15 (fifteen) years and a fine of at least Rp100,000,000. 00 (one hundred
million rupiah) and a maximum of Rp.5,000,000,000.00 (five billion rupiahs).
As well as article 41 of Law No.18 of 2008 which reads
(1) Waste management due to negligence in carrying out waste management activities by not
paying attention to standard norms, procedures, or criteria that can lead to public health
security disturbances, environmental pollution and / or environmental damage threatened
with imprisonment for a maximum of 3 (three) years and a maximum fine of Rp
100,000,000 (one hundred million rupiah) \
(2) If the criminal offense as referred to in paragraph (1) results in a dead person or serious
injury, the waste manager is threatened with a maximum imprisonment of 5 (five) years
and a maximum fine of Rp. 500,000,000.00 (five hundred million rupiah).
 CHAPTER III
CLOSING

A. Conclusion

Indonesia the second-largest contributor to marine plastic pollution after China. Estimates
that between 1.15 million and 2.41 million tons of plastic enters the oceans every year
from rivers. Of this, Indonesia is estimated to emit around 200,000 tons of plastic from
rivers and streams, mainly from Java and Sumatra.

Plastic debris can kill marine animals that get entangled and drown or starve after they
ingest particles they cannot digest. Toxins leach from plastic as it breaks down, posing
health risks for animals, while also entering the food chain and eventually ending up on
our plates.

To stop Indonesia from polluting the oceans with plastic, it is important to change land-
based waste management in Indonesia. mismanaged plastic waste - domestic and
commercial - which is dumped, intentionally or not, on the river.

At the first UN Marine Conference last June, which focused on the sustainable use of the
sea, marine and marine resources, Indonesia pledged to reduce plastic debris by 70% by
2025.This commitment is a good step towards policy change. But some environmentalists
and scholars are skeptical about the effectiveness of current government efforts. At
present the Indonesian Waste Management Law does not have a specific reference for
plastic waste.

some basic definitions are needed. It is a very easy way to distinguish between plastic,
recyclable plastic, biodegradable plastic and compostable alternatives to plastic. There
are various misconceptions about plastic said to be degradable. In a fragmented form, it
can actually leach toxins, enter the food chain and become highly hazardous to the
environment and human health.

More stringent laws can prohibit some plastic usage, set standards for waste minimization
in packaging and consumer responsibility for waste disposal as well as set out reuse,
recycling and disposal obligations. Indonesia 's Law on Waste Management states that
the national and regional governments share responsibility for rubbish. But the law does
not indicate who is to do what.

The national government has the authority to set national policy and strategy. It's the only
level of government that can set "norms, standards, procedure and criteria" (article 7).
The national government is also authorized to create incentives and disincentives for
reducing rubbish (article 21). It is unclear whether local governments can do the same. In
December 2014, the governor of Bali announced that the island would be "plastic bag
free by 2018". But the follow-up action has been slow. This is partly due to confusion
about which level of government should act first. To date, the national government
appears reluctant to lead the way.
 The Law of Protection and Management of the Environment enables provincial
governments to incentives and disincentives such as environmental taxes, use fees for
public facility and subsidies. Unfortunately, it seems that regional governments are still
deferring to the national level unless they are given a green light to proceed.

B. Suggestion

Indonesian people need some awareness and education. It is important to make people
aware about the dangers of plastic waste if this kind of waste not properly managed. But
that can't be enough to really reduce dependence on disposable plastics. To win the battle
against plastic pollution, the central and regional governments of Indonesia need to
strengthen their legal framework.

National definitions are needed to distinguish between degraded plastics, recyclable

plastics, biodegradable plastics and alternative plastics that can be composted. There is a
need to be clear about responsibilities at every level of government and the creation of
new norms, standards, procedures and criteria. The government must initiate a multi-
tiered approach involving affected communities. Those who continue to experience
plastic pollution live with the urgency to act every day.

So from this urgency of sea pollution, I, as the author, give input so that plastic producers
use the right steps to realize the ideals contained in Article 28H of the 1945 Constitution
and Article 15 of Law No.18 of 2008, namely by applying the Deposit Refund System in
their sales.
BIBILIOGRAPHY

Indonesia, Law on Waste Management, UU No. 18 Year 2008

1945 Constitution, Article 28H point (1)

Eriksen M, Lebreton LCM, Carson HS, Thiel M, Moore CJ, et al. (2014) Plastic Pollution in the
World’s Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea.
PLoS ONE 9(12): e111913. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0111913

Ivan, “Sampah plastik diprediksi penuhi lautan pada 2050”, https://beritagar.id/artikel/sains-

tekno/sampah-plastik-diprediksi-penuhi-lautan-pada-2050.

Jambeck, J.R., Andrady, A., Geyer, R., Narayan, R., Perryman, M., Siegler, T., Wilcox, C.,
Lavender Law, K. 2015. “Plastik waste inputs from land into the ocean”, Science, 347.

Puteri, Irawati, Rizkina Aliya, Satria Afif MuhammaD, 2018, Penerapan Plastic Deposit Refund
System Sebagai Instrumen Penanggulangan Pencemaran Limbah Plastik Di Wilayah Perairan
Indonesia, Environtmental Law Journal, Vol 14

Garg, Teevrat, Stuart E. Hamilton, Jacob P. Hochard, Evan Plous Kresch, John Talbot, 2018,
(Not so) gently down the stream: River pollution and health in Indonesia, Journal of
Environmental Economic and Management

R. Jambeck, Jenna, Roland Geyer, Chris Wilcox, Theodore R. Siegler, Miriam Perryman,
Anthony Andrady, Ramani Narayan, Kara Lavender Law , 2015, Plastic waste inputs from land
into
the ocean, sciencemag.org, vol 347