Indonesia sets up living labs in the fight against plastic pollution

In response to what has now been described as a ‘plastic waste emergency’, one of the world’s worst plastic polluters, Indonesia, is launching a string of living labs to help people fight plastic pollution.

The labs are an initiative of PISCES, a £3.8 million, three-and-a-half year project led by Brunel University in the UK that has deployed an international multi-disciplinary team to create ‘hope spots’ in Indonesia’s battle against plastic waste. Set up as a collaborative partnership, it brings academic researchers together with business, industry, governments, NGOs, and civil society to understand and manage the risks posed by plastic pollution. The initiative supports Indonesia’s Coordinating Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Investment’s 2025 goal of cutting plastic waste leakage into the ocean by 70%.

The team’s approach involves modelling the ‘leakage’ of waste from the land into the oceans, and confirming the models with an extensive fieldwork programme to gain a clearer understanding of what the economic, cultural and social reasons behind this leakage. This will enable the development of specific interventions to tackle the problem. The ‘living labs’ will be established at the case study sites where it will be examined which solutions work and what the relative costs and benefits of each might be. The plan is to eventually roll out living labs to every province nationwide.
“We want to help Indonesia be the first nation worldwide to introduce a sweeping, cross value chain approach to combat plastic waste and pollution,” said director Prof Susan Jobling of Brunel University London.
Already, the first living lab has opened in Banyuwangi, East Java, an area the government is targeting as a testbed for national change.

The PISCES team aims to develop ways to ‘avoid, reduce, reuse, and recycle’ plastic waste. This will require moving away from single-use plastic packaging such as dry food sachets, plastic bags and takeaway food containers towards the use of reusable, refillable, or returnable packaging. Moreover, Banyuwangi has no rubbish collection service, which means efforts will also focus on finding efficient ways to collect, sort and process plastic waste and look for plastic alternatives.

“This will induce a wave of change that addresses plastic pollution at the source,” continued Jobling. We hope it will spark greater collaboration and commitment from other countries. It will protect marine and freshwater ecosystems, improve fisheries and tourism, strengthen local economies and transform city governance.”

The PISCES team brings together four UK Universities (Brunel University London, University of Leeds, University of Plymouth and University of Strathclyde), the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), six Indonesian universities and the Indonesia National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).
Dr Eleni Iacovidou, who lectures in environmental management at Brunel, described living labs as “a place where solutions to plastic pollution are co-created to support communities making the transition to a sustainable future where plastic pollution is prevented.” The successful implementation of any solution should also be backed by strategies at the policy level that nudge and support multiple stakeholders across the value chain to take action and change the way they think about and use plastics, she said.
“The PISCES partnership seeks to not only provide solutions but also educate and train people on how to separate plastic waste and how to prevent pollution by adopting new ways of doing things.”