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.