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Managing PET Plastic Waste in Samarinda, East Kalimantan: Public Awareness, Infrastructure Gaps, and Pretreatment Strategies for Biodegradation
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In an Indonesian city where most plastic isn't recycled, researchers found that people generally know plastic is bad for the environment, but that knowledge rarely translates into actual recycling habits—showing that awareness alone isn't enough to fix the problem. They also discovered that breaking PET plastic bottles into smaller flakes (rather than sheets) helps it break down faster, a useful first step toward developing better ways to biodegrade plastic waste before it lingers in rivers and soil for decades, potentially shedding microplastics into the food and water we consume.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a widely used packaging polymer that persists for decades, contributing to plastic pollution and urban environmental sanitation challenges. In East Kalimantan, municipal solid waste generation reaches 808,811.50 t/year, with Samarinda contributing 220,209.83 t/year, of which 12.94% (~28,495 t) is plastic. This study assessed PET waste management in Samarinda by integrating waste generation and infrastructure analysis, a community-based survey of knowledge and practices, and laboratory-scale evaluation of PET pretreatment methods as a preliminary step to support subsequent biodegradability. A mixed-methods approach was applied, combining a cross-sectional questionnaire survey, desk review of waste-management infrastructure, and experimental pretreatment of post-consumer environmental PET waste collected from rivers and a final disposal site. Pretreatments included UV exposure, oven heating, and sunlight exposure applied to PET sheets and flakes. Mass-loss differences were analyzed using one-way ANOVA, while FTIR and SEM were used to characterize PET functional groups and surface morphology. Results showed moderate knowledge of PET environmental impacts but low exposure to education (10.70%), limited household sorting (20.90%), and minimal recycling participation (7.70%). Multivariate analysis showed no statistically significant association between sociodemographic or knowledge-related variables and PET recycling frequency or controlled disposal behavior (p > 0.05), suggesting a knowledge–practice gap. Experimentally, particle size significantly influenced mass loss (p < 0.05), with PET flakes showing higher mass loss than PET sheets. These findings indicate that PET waste management requires integrated strategies combining infrastructure strengthening, targeted education, consistent 3R implementation, and pretreatment-assisted approaches to support future PET biodegradation studies.
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