Bali ban on single-use plastics widely ignored by small businesses on holiday island – ‘My customers expect plastic bags’
- Island administration was first to impose such a ban in Indonesia, one of the world’s worst plastic polluters, with trash piling up on beaches and in waterways
- While a seller of plastic bags, trays and straws reports a drop in sales, small businesses still use them, and only sanction they face is moral, not financial
The tiny shop is cluttered with plastic. Packs of drinking straws fill one corner and boxes of styrofoam containers are stacked high in another. Colourful plastic bags of different sizes are piled on the shelves behind the counter, and jumbles of plastic cups are tied together and hung from the ceiling.
A constant stream of customers flows through the door, and Seza, the 25-year-old owner of the shop, on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali, is busy tending to them. “Do you want a plastic bag for that?” he jokes to one of his customers.
The customer laughs and turns down the offer. She is buying packs of plastic drinking straws and has brought her own reusable shopping bag.
“Yes, of course I have heard about the plastic ban,” says Seza. “It’s on social media, it’s on TV, on the radio. It’s everywhere. In April, some people from the government even came to my shop to do a survey about how many plastic bags my shop is selling every day, and to inform me about this ban on plastic bags, plastic straws and styrofoam trays.”
The ban is an attempt by the newly elected governor, Wayan Koster, to curb plastic waste. It’s the first province-wide regulation promulgated in Indonesia against the use of plastic bags, straws and polystyrene, in a country with one of the worst records on plastic pollution.