Shopping Center Managers Who Object To The Sanction Of Banning Plastic Bags

Illustration. (Photo: Unsplash)

JAKARTA - The Association of Indonesian Shopping Center Managers (APPBI) DKI Jakarta has asked for revisions to the Regulation of the Governor of DKI Jakarta regarding the mandatory use of environmentally friendly shopping bags, especially regarding sanctions because they are considered not on target.

Pergub Number 142 of 2019 concerning the Obligation to Use Environmentally Friendly Shopping Bags in Shopping Centers, Supermarkets and People's Markets was promulgated on December 31, 2019 and officially effective July 1, 2020.

"Regarding several articles in the Pergub, we think it is not right if all the sanctions are imposed on the shopping center manager that rents out or strata title malls," said Jakarta APPBI Chairman Ellen Hidayat in a written statement, Thursday, January 9.

Ellen explained that the shopping center management business is renting out business units and the manager does not make direct sales and does not come into contact with plastic or plastic bags.

According to him, the regulation issued by the DKI Jakarta Provincial Environmental Agency can be said to transfer responsibility for the success of the program to the manager of the shopping center.

"We are also under pressure to have to supervise tenants / retailers not to use environmentally friendly bags with quite heavy sanctions, including forced money of up to Rp25 million and even the revocation of shopping center business permits," he said.

Ellen gave an example, if a shopping center has 300 tenants and by chance a tenant is found wearing a plastic bag, the mall's license must be revoked so that the other 299 tenants cannot do business anymore. This is considered to be detrimental, even though the shopping centers absorb quite a lot of workforce.

"In our opinion, the DKI Jakarta Provincial Environmental Agency should seriously want to suppress the use of these plastic bags, they should do it continuously and prevent it from upstream, namely limiting / eliminating the production of these bags from the producers and ensuring that there are no more products circulating in the market. society, "he said.

Besides that, it also needs to be disseminated to all members of the community and the socialization of the dangers of using plastic bags for the environment also needs to be encouraged.

"For that, we ask that the Pergub be corrected, especially regarding the sanctions that are not reasonable or not on target to us as the manager of the shopping center," he said.

Nevertheless, Ellen fully supports the use of environmentally friendly shopping bags as an effort to protect the environment which is now being enforced by the government, especially in the regions.