To Make This Tofu, Start by Burning Toxic Plastic

Plastic waste from America, collected for recycling, is shipped to Indonesia. Some is
burned as fuel by tofu makers, producing deadly chemicals and contaminating food.

By Richard C. Paddock

 Nov. 14, 2019

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A commercial tofu kitchen in Tropodo, Indonesia. The tofu is processed in boilers fueled by
burning plastic.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

TROPODO, Indonesia — Black smoke billows from smokestacks towering above the
village. The smell of burning plastic fills the air. Patches of black ash cover the
ground. It’s another day of making tofu.

More than 30 commercial kitchens in Tropodo, a village on the eastern side of

Indonesia’s main island, Java, fuel their tofu production by burning a mix of paper
and plastic waste, some of it shipped from the United States after Americans dumped
it in their recycling bins.

The backyard kitchens produce much of the area’s tofu, an inexpensive and high-
protein food made from soy that is an important part of the local diet. But the smoke
and ash produced by the burning plastic has far-reaching and toxic consequences.

Testing of eggs laid by chickens in Tropodo, a village of 5,000 people, found

high levels of several hazardous chemicals including dioxin — a pollutant
known to cause cancer, birth defects and Parkinson’s disease — according to
a report released this week by an alliance of Indonesian and international
environmental groups.

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The dioxin found in Tropodo is the end product in a chain of malfeasance,
carelessness and governmental neglect.

“They start the burning early in the morning and go until evening,” said
Karnawi, 84, who lives near seven of the plastic-burning commercial kitchens.
“It happens every day and the smoke is always in the air. For me, it’s difficult to
breathe.” Like many Indonesians, Mr. Karnawi uses only one name.

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A truck dumps imported plastic waste in Bangun village, some of which is destined for the
tofu kitchens.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

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Plastic from around the world, including the United States, winds up at a dump at Bangun
village, where locals sort it.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

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Plastic arrives at a tofu plant in Tropodo village. When the plastic is burned it creates plumes
of black smoke.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

An egg laid by one of Mr. Karnawi’s chickens had one of the highest levels of
dioxin ever recorded in Asia, the report found.

The levels of dioxin found in that egg were second only to eggs collected near Bien
Hoa, Vietnam, the former United States air base that was a Vietnam War staging area
for the defoliant Agent Orange, which contains dioxin. The United States recently
began a 10-year, $390 million cleanup at Bien Hoa, which remains heavily
contaminated nearly five decades after the war ended.

An adult who eats just one egg like the one taken from Mr. Karnawi’s henhouse
would exceed the United States daily safety threshold by nearly 25-fold and the
stricter European Food Safety Authority standard by 70-fold.

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Eggs are commonly used for testing contamination because chickens effectively
sample the soil as they forage and toxins accumulate in their eggs.
 “These stark findings illustrate the dangers of plastics for human health and should
move policymakers to ban plastic waste combustion, address environmental
contamination, and rigorously control imports,” said Lee Bell, an adviser to the
International Pollutants Elimination Network and a co-author of the report.

The study was conducted by four environmental groups: Ecoton and the Nexus3
Foundation, based in Indonesia; Arnika, based in Prague; and the International
Pollutants Elimination Network or IPEN, a global network dedicated to eliminating
toxic pollutants.

The toxins found in Tropodo’s soil begin with Westerners believing they are
doing a good thing for the environment — sorting their waste for recycling.
Much of that waste is sent abroad, including to Indonesia, where it is combined
with local waste for processing.

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But rather than being turned into new consumer goods like fleece jackets and
sneakers, much of the waste is unusable for recycling and is instead thrown into the
furnaces that fuel Tropodo’s tofu boilers.

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“This is plastic collected from consumers in the United States and other
countries and burned to make tofu in Indonesia,” said Yuyun Ismawati, a co-
founder of the Nexus3 Foundation and a study co-author.

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The ground in Tropodo is covered in plastic ash.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York
Times

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A worker adds plastic to a furnace.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

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Tofu, inexpensive and high in protein, is an important part of the local diet.Credit...Ulet
Ifansasti for The New York Times

The amount of foreign waste coming to Indonesia soared two years ago after China
halted trash imports.

In East Java, 11 paper mills operate south of Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-

largest city, and import waste paper for recycling.

Some unscrupulous foreign waste handlers dump unwanted plastic on the

developing world by including as much as 50 percent plastic in their supposed paper
shipments, Ms. Yuyun said. Local companies profit by accepting the shipments.

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Much of the plastic is unwanted, low-grade material and Indonesia has no good way
to dispose of it.

After removing the best materials for recycling, most companies send their
remaining waste to Bangun, a village known for its trash pickers who hunt for items
of value and material worth recycling.
In Bangun, piles of trash, some more than 15 feet high, fill every vacant bit of land.
About 2,400 people live in the village and almost every family is involved in the
waste business.

The trash pickers say they can tell that some shipments have come from the United
States because of the writing on items they sort. Further indicating the origin of the
waste, the pickers say they sometimes find accidentally discarded American dollars
and broken liquor bottles with distinctively American labels, like Jack Daniels.

The final stop for the least wanted trash is Tropodo and its tofu makers.

Every day, trucks carry leftover scraps of paper and plastic 20 miles by road from
Bangun to Tropodo and leave their loads outside the tofu kitchens.

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“People need it as fuel for the tofu factories,” said a truck driver, Fadil, 38, as he
dumped his load on a village street. He said he had been delivering paper and plastic
waste to the village’s tofu makers for 20 years.

The open burning of trash — including plastic — is widespread throughout

Indonesia. The practice is illegal but the law is seldom enforced.
Image

The burning of plastic pollutes the air and food. It creates dioxin and other toxic
chemicals.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

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Chickens peck at the toxic soil. The highest dioxin levels ever recorded in eggs in Asia were
found in Tropodo.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

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A woman fries tofu to eat.Credit...Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

Environmental activists say Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, has neglected

health concerns in pursuit of economic development and have urged him to address
toxic contamination, including air pollution and mercury contamination.

In July, the Environment Ministry’s director general for waste management, Rosa
Vivien Ratnawati, visited Tropodo and acknowledged that the plastic burning was
hazardous but made no attempt to halt it.

She told reporters that she would investigate how the toxic smoke could be
controlled.

“If the plastic is used as fuel it is not a problem but the pollution should be
managed,” she said.

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Since then, the government has taken no action.

 Contacted last week by The New York Times, Ms. Ratnawati declined to discuss
the issue and referred questions to the director general for environmental
pollution, Karliansyah. He did not respond to inquiries from The Times.

Many of Tropodo’s residents say they detest the plastic burning but are powerless to
stop it.

The tofu makers — a major employer in Tropodo — switched to burning plastic from
wood many years ago.

The kitchens operate every day, and when there is little wind the acrid smoke hangs
over the village like a poisonous fog.

Nanang Zainuddin, 37, runs a small kitchen around the corner from Mr. Karanawi’s
henhouse. He says he burns plastic because it is cheaper, sometimes as little as a
tenth of the cost of burning wood.

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The process of making tofu starts with soaking and grinding soybeans, placing them
in a concrete tub and injecting steam from a boiler that is fueled by burning plastic.

One worker tends the boiler and stuffs plastic into the fire while others steam the
soybeans and skim off the pulp.

Mr. Nanang said that he disposes of the plastic ash by burying some and spreading
more on the ground to create a level surface. He also gives some to neighbors so they
can spread it over the soil around their homes.

“We are now standing on the ashes,” he said as chickens and chicks scratched
for food near his feet.

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“Dioxin can come from anywhere,” he added, “but if the government would like to
resolve this, they are welcome.”
The former mayor of Tropodo, Ismail, 50, a tofu producer himself, banned the use of
plastic as fuel in 2014. But the prohibition lasted only a few months before the
burning resumed.

His edict has been ignored ever since.

“There are many tofu makers here and most of them do not care,” said Mr.
Ismail, who uses mostly wood and some plastic as his fuel. “The tofu makers
only count the profit, profit, profit. They don’t count the disadvantages created
by this business