Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Ministry of Environment and Forestry urged all parties to sort waste from the household stage to support the national recycling industry by providing sorted waste materials.

The Ministry's Toxic and Hazardous Waste Management (PSLB3) Director General Rosa Vivien Ratnawati affirmed that the circular economy approach to bolster waste utilisation by industries needs sorted waste and not contaminated by other matter as production material.

"As for the industry that uses waste (as their production material), they could not use dirty waste, they must use only sorted waste," Ratnawati stated during the opening ceremony of the 2022 National Waste Care Festival here on Tuesday.

She encouraged stakeholders to start sorting waste from the household level, as doing so in the first place will result in good quality and clean waste material for the industry.

Waste sorting is important to ensure material availability for the national industry, as Indonesia is still importing waste to fulfil the recycling industry's needs, the director general noted.

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She highlighted that of the six million tons of waste material needed for the paper recycling industry annually, 40 percent of the materials are still imported.

"Imagine, even with the 67.8 million tons of waste in Indonesia, we are still importing 40 percent of plastic and paper waste," Ratnawati pointed out.

The director general stated that sorted waste must be delivered to designated locations, such as waste banks established by communities in various places, to ensure the waste will not mix with other matter.

"This is because we could not sort our waste properly yet. I will use every opportunity available while I am speaking to remind (all of you) to sort our waste from home," she remarked. 

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