The Indonesian government has introduced a reward deposit on plastic floating around in the sea.
The authorities are paying 1,700 local fishermen to collect plastic from the sea instead of fishing for four weeks.
The government expects to remove around eight tons of plastic from the sea. If it works, this pilot project could certainly be continued with more fishermen in the future.
Of course, eight tonnes is only a fraction of all the plastic floating around in the sea around Indonesia, but it is a start and there is also another purpose of the project.
"At the very least, this will raise awareness of the problem among all actors who use the ocean and among people around the world," said Sakti Wahyu Trenggono, Indonesia's Minister of Fisheries, in a comment to Mongabay.
Indonesia is one of the countries in the world that releases the most plastic waste into the oceans. In 2017, 620,000 tonnes of plastic entered the sea from Indonesia.
But Indonesia's government plans to reduce plastic waste by 70 percent by 2025. They will invest one billion dollars in building more plastic recycling stations, among other things. In addition, producers must be forced to take greater responsibility for the plastic waste they contribute to.
