Indonesian entrepreneur tackles plastic scourge with bioplastics
JAKARTA: From bags washing up on Bali’s beaches to food packaging scattered across roads and clogging waterways in cities, Indonesia is facing a plastic waste crisis driven by years of rapid economic growth.
Now an entrepreneur from Bali, disgusted at the rubbish littering the famous holiday island, is trying to tackle the problem with alternatives to conventional plastic.
His company produces goods including cassava carrier bags, takeaway food containers made from sugar cane and straws fashioned from corn starch, which founder Kevin Kumala says biodegrade relatively quickly and don’t leave any toxic residue.
“I’m an avid diver and surfer and I’m out there seeing this plastic pollution in front of my very eyes,” says Kumala, explaining why he decided to get into the business of biodegradable plastics, known as “bioplastics”. After witnessing the pollution around Bali, he insisted that tackling the problem is “something that needs to be done”.
His project comes at a critical time for action on the issue.
A 2016 report by the Ellen MacArthur foundation warned that by 2050, there would be more plastic than fish in the ocean, measuring by weight.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos this January, 40 of the world’s biggest companies agreed to come up with cleaner ways to make and use the material.
The Indonesian archipelago of over 17,000 islands was one of the worst offenders when it came to marine littering, with US charity Oceans Conservancy estimating that the country dumps the second-highest amount of plastic into the sea, behind only China.