Assessment of Compliance with Indonesian Ecolabeling Regulations: Case Study in Beverage Products with Semi-Rigid Plastic Packaging
Abstract
Indonesia is one of the world’s leading producers of plastic trash and plastic
marine pollution. It is estimated that beverage product contributed 971,000 metric
tonnes of plastic with just a small percentage of it being recycled. Companies play
an important role in introducing an environmentally friendly product to the market.
To provide the consumer confidence that the environmentally product is correctly
implemented, the Ministry of Forestry and Environment enacted the Ministry of
Forestry and Environment Law Number 2 of 2014 about ecolabel. This study
attempts to examine and evaluate the compliance of beverage companies in
Indonesia with relation to the addition of the ecolabelling logo on the packaging.
To achieve this, this study used a survey of several food industry practitioner from
beverage companies, as well as field observation of the product. The result shows
that although the food industry practitioner is aware and knowledgeable about
ecolabel, the implementation is still concerningly low, with only 1 product with
compliant ecolabel amongst 109 products. The cause of the low implementation
could be due to its difficulty in terms of requirements, cost and supporting policies
that enforces or encourage the industry to comply it. Therefore, additional research
and discussions between stakeholders must be conducted to assess the challenges
and overcome this issue.