The development of waste management policy in Indonesia has already considered the role of the producer in reducing their impact on waste management, starting with the implementation of Law no. 18 year 2008 on Waste Management [22]. The producer’s role in waste management was also reinforced by subsequent government or ministry regulations such as Government Regulation of Republic of Indonesia no. 81 year 2012 on Domestic Waste Management and similar waste and the Ministry of Environment Regulation no. 13 year 2012 about Implementation of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (3R) through Waste Bank [22]. In the latter regulation, the appendix of the regulation mentions the integration of the waste bank concept with the extended producer responsibility (EPR) concept [14]. The Government Regulation of Republic of Indonesia no. 81 year 2012 defines producers as businesses that produce, distribute, and sell goods and uses packaging or containers that does not or are difficult to naturally degrade [7].
Waste Bank is a campaign to address the waste problem by buying back and recovering money from waste using a banking system [16]. In the waste bank system, pre-sorted waste is collected and monetarily valued. The member who submits the pre-sorted waste may save the money from the valuation activity into an account, just like a banking system. The waste bank often cooperates with recyclers to exchange the collected waste for money. In some cities in Indonesia, such as Makassar, community-based waste banks are reinforced by the establishment of a central waste bank to gain leverage in terms of quantity and added value of waste [10].
EPR is a policy approach that aims to extend the responsibility of producers to also include the post-consumer stage of the products [15]. According to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), approximately 384 cases of the EPR system have been adopted so far globally and practiced in various forms [15]. The most common EPR strategies include the adoption of take-back activity, deposit-refund scheme, environmental-friendly design, and EPR policy, which helps to reduce the financial burden of waste on municipalities, decrease the amount of waste in final disposal, and increase the recycling rate [15].
However, adoption of the EPR concept as a policy needs careful consideration of the existing waste management system or post-consumer stage. In developing countries, adoption of EPR policy similar to in developed country faces several challenges, such as improper waste management or differences in the roles of stakeholders [1], and the existence of an informal recycling sector [8]. However, there is also evidence that carefully considering the role of key stakeholders in developing EPR policy may create a different approach of EPR policy adoption, as seen in Colombia where a shared responsibility approach is adopted between government institutions, private sectors, the informal recycling sector, and other stakeholders [15]. Marshall and Farahbakhsh [12] also highlighted the importance of a suitable strategy for waste management in the context of developing countries.
According to the OECD [15], fast economic growth in developing countries may increase the demand of newer and more variation of goods from the middle-income class, which leads to a more complex stream of waste in the post-consumer stage. The more complex stream of waste may have negatively impact environmental and public health when not treated properly. Therefore, improvement of the waste management system is required to manage new challenges from more complex waste streams.
Indonesia is subject to some of the abovementioned challenges, and the informal recycling sector plays an important role [4]. In a recent study by Putri et al. [17] on plastic waste recycling, the informal recycling sector collected approximately 33.8% of plastic waste generated in Jakarta, compared to 0.39% collected by the waste bank system, and 54.3% of plastic waste goes to final disposal sites. These studies show the reliance on the final disposal site for waste management in Indonesia; meanwhile, the informal recycling sector still plays a major role in recycling in Indonesia. Although they exist, alternative approaches to recycling, such as Waste Banks, still account for a small portion of waste management due to reliance to consumer participation [17].
Several past studies have investigated the role of waste banks in waste management, such as those by Raharjo et al. [18] in Padang city and Kubota et al. [10] in Makassar city, which focused more on how waste banks can support existing waste management systems. Although conducted in different areas, both studies suggest the integration of the Waste Bank system with the formal waste management system run by the local government/public sector. A study by Wijayanti and Suryani [26] in Surabaya demonstrated that wide adoption of Waste Banks successfully reduces the amount of waste to local final disposal sites. In addition, Waste Banks have positive economic, social, educational, and governance impacts in the community [26].
Considering the main findings in major cities in Indonesia, this study considers Waste Banks as a source-separated post-consumer waste route, and community-based approaches may provide relevant insight in Indonesia, especially in the early post-consumer stage. Waste Banks were selected as the focus for two reasons:
1. Waste banks, as a community-based approach, promote direct behavioral impacts on waste management.
Considering the mechanism of Waste Banks, members must sort waste at the source before it can be submitted and traded to generate financial savings. As stated by Leal Filho et al. [11], source separation and sorting are imperative to improve the recycling rate.
2. Waste banks collect directly from a group of households.
Compared to the traditional informal sector, Waste Banks rely on the clients’ participation [17]. Therefore, Waste Banks usually only accept and collect waste from member households. As the scale may vary, the possibility to simultaneously collect waste from several households means that Waste Banks can collect a considerable amount of waste. If the waste bank is scaled up appropriately, they can obtain leverage in terms of quantity. This may provide a better level of traceability compared to the traditional informal recycling sector, which is necessary for the producer sector to ensure that post-consumer products are treated responsibly. Traceability is considered as an important factor by Tong et al. [24].
Packaging waste was selected as the focus in this study following a common practice observation of Waste Banks in Indonesia which focus on collecting separated packaging waste from households that still has economic value when traded with the informal recycling sector. A categorization system from Waste4Change [25] provides typical types of packaging that are also commonly collected at Waste Banks. Furthermore, several established EPR schemes focus on packaging waste; therefore, it is easier to find examples of packaging waste EPR practices.
Several previous studies have focused on factors contributing to participation in waste management programs. Suttibak and Nitivattananon [23] highlighted the enhancement of perception of awareness, operator skill, source separation, and transportation cost in Thailand. Khan et al. [9] and Stoeva and Alriksson [21] used the theory of planned behavior in their study framework and highlighted the importance of convenient collection as well as awareness of recycling benefit.
The abovementioned studies discussed the role of the general informal sector in waste management and its implication on the formulation of EPR policy. However, this study focuses on the feedback of Waste Banks, a community-based approach, to recommend policy for EPR implementation. The objective of this study is to clarify the viewpoints of waste bank members on producer contribution in the post-consumer stage for packaging waste, while considering the Waste Bank role.
Considering the abovementioned challenges of implementing EPR in developing countries using the definition of developed countries, this study interpreted EPR differently. Indonesian regulations rarely use “EPR,” instead implying producers must reduce the impact generated by their products. To reflect such conditions in this study, EPR is generally interpreted as the contribution of producers to reduce the impact of products at the post-consumer stage and refers to producer contribution in the general EPR conception.