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Online comments: Push On for End To Plastic Bags in Jakarta

Here people, look at me with amazement while I stuff all my groceries into my backpack. Yet the cashier will still try her utmost to give me plastic bags. When I decline, the cashier often asks: “ Ga malu ?” (Doesn’t that make you shy?). Why would I be embarrassed about buying just a toothbrush or a pack of sugar? This is all to do with attitude. There should be commercials, or perhaps more effectively, sinetrons (local soap operas) teaching the public about such waste.
ChrisH

It won’t be easy to change. Plastic bags offer flexibility and ease of use, and their cheap production cost is the biggest challenge to replacing them.
Sammy99

One way to discourage the use of plastic bags is by introducing a tax on them. If consumers had to pay a fee, they would think twice before using them. The most successful example of this is Ireland’s plastic bag tax. The PlasTax succeeded in reducing plastic bag use by 90 percent per annum, and the 15 cent fee collected at the checkout was used to establish a $9.6 million fund for the environment. Imagine what Indonesia could do with such funds.
alex.ryan

I could not disagree more with Alex Ryan. “Lets tax the people!” Horrible idea. The poor people of Indonesia are already struggling and this bozo wants to add a tax that will most likely be another source for corruption for some government official. These people who constantly call for taxes as “punishment” on the common people just make me sick. There is never any thought of trying to assist and promote.
billjayman

Hear hear, Billjay. Why not just ban the things altogether though as a couple of villages have done in Britain? I doubt society would collapse overnight as a consequence. SimonP Dear Billjayman, I have to disagree with you. The tax could act as a “discouragement tax” to deter customers from taking new plastic bags and instead make use of bags already at home. There would be no impact on the poor.
Roland