Toxic tofu? How plastic waste from the west fuels food factories in Indonesia
Plastic waste from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, the US and Britain is being used to fuel tofu production in Indonesia, the Guardian has learned.
Five factory owners in an industrial village in East Java, and one environmental organisation told the Guardian that imported plastic is burned daily to fuel furnaces in factories that produce tofu, prompting concern about serious health impacts.
Each day about 60 tofu factories in Tropodo fire up their boilers and fryers and then feed them with a combination of plastic waste, wood and coconut husks, producing about 60 tonnes of tofu that is distributed in the region, including to Indonesia's second-largest city Surabaya. The tofu is not sold outside Indonesia.
'We use plastic because it is cheaper,' said one factory owner, asking to remain anonymous.
The open burning of waste is banned in Indonesia but it remains a common way to dispose of waste across the archipelago.
In one Tropodo factory, alongside domestic plastic waste and even discarded rubber from a nearby shoe factory sit huge piles of imported foreign plastic, among them a dog food packet from New Zealand, and cheese wrappers from France.
A different factory owner, Wahyuni, said they burn through a truckload of imported plastic every two days, which costs about $13, compared with $130 for the same amount of wood. Truckloads varied in weight but could be up to three tonnes.
The Guardian visited five factories and all burned imported foreign waste, although the amounts varied.
Indonesians consume an average 8kg of tofu per person annually, according to the Indonesian Bureau of Statistics (BPS), but production of the protein-rich staple is causing concern among environmental groups such as Ecoton, which monitors illegal dumpsites near paper mills and tofu factories.
'Non-recyclable plastic scraps are sold [as fuel] to industries such as tofu production. It is only the paper mill scrap that can provide them with a continuous and sufficient amount of cheap fuel,' said Ecoton's Dr Daru Setyorini.
'It's very easy to find trash from rich countries [at the factories], especially the United States and Australia,' she added.
Much of the foreign plastic, Setyorini said, originated from paper imports.
Indonesia imports about 3m tonnes of scrap paper and cardboard annually, government data shows. According to World Bank data, the largest exporters to Indonesia are the EU, US, UK, Australia and Japan.
Many of the shipments arrive at Indonesia's largest port in Surabaya, about an hour's drive from Tropodo, and then distributed to nearly a dozen paper mills for recycling.
The Indonesian government has set a contamination limit on paper imports at 2%, but Ecoton says enforcement is weak and many of the bundles are littered with more, sometimes as high as 30%.
Unwanted by the paper mills, the plastic is sold to brokers or given away. Ecoton estimates about 70 tonnes are burnt in Tropodo's tofu factories each week.
Indonesia became a hotspot for the global recycling industry after China banned waste imports in 2018. The south-east Asian nation imported 260,000 tonnes of plastic waste in 2024 alone.
The government introduced a ban on plastic waste imports this year, but local activists argue it won't address the core issue: paper waste imports contaminated with plastic scraps.
The Indonesian Pulp and Paper Association, which represents more than 60 companies that import waste to Indonesia, did not respond to requests for comment.
Three major paper mills that the tofu factories said supplied them with the imported plastic waste also did not respond to questions from the Guardian.
Inside a sweltering tofu factory in Tropodo, the stench of burning plastic is overwhelming, but the workers seem unfazed.
Asked about the health risks, one said they all smoked cigarettes anyway, 'and none of us have got sick'.
Traditionally, wood fuelled the boilers, but high costs have led factory owners to a shift to plastic.
Factory owner Joko said that tofu factories in East Java have for years burned plastic to fuel production, a practice he said that also occurs near other major recycling facilities in Java.
Joko directed the Guardian to one of the illegal plastic scrap dumpsites where the factories source their scrap plastic and where foreign plastic was found.
Experts say that burning plastic, especially in food production, poses serious health risks, including an increased risk of respiratory illnesses and chronic disease.
This February Ecoton tested tofu purchased from a Tropodo market and found high concentrations of microplastics, in the form of fibres, ranging from 0.15mm to 1.76mm.
Scientists are still studying the impacts of microplastics on human health, but some studies indicate that they can increase the likelihood of heart attack, stroke or death.
Burning plastic releases microplastic particles into the air, water and onto surfaces, increasing the risk of contamination in food products such as tofu, said Dr Setyorini.
Environmental groups have also reported dangerous pollution from toxic ash accumulating around tofu factories and entering the food chain through free-range chickens.
A 2024 study involving Jakarta-based research and advocacy group Nexus3 Foundation found consuming half a free-range egg from sites near tofu factories in Tropodo, Kawerang and Tangerang, West Java, would exceed safe daily dioxin levels by 48 times.
The researchers noted dioxins could cause developmental problems in children, lead to reproductive and infertility problems in adults, result in miscarriages, damage the immune system and interfere with hormones.
'They could spend 1.5m rupiah ($97) per week to buy wood as a safer fuel,' said Nexus3 co-founder Yuyun Ismawati, 'But with plastic scraps, company trucks drop it off for free.'
Another owner, speaking anonymously, said he was concerned about the health impacts, but reverting to wood would increase costs sixfold. He urged the government to subsidise factories to use cleaner fuels.
Novrizal Tahar, director of waste management at Indonesia's environment ministry, agreed the practice was 'dangerous for human health' and said the government is working to enforce the import ban.
To Dr Setyorini, that is only part of the problem.
A bigger issue, she said, is wealthy nations exporting their waste to developing nations, a practice she described as 'waste colonialism'.
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