Tonnes of plastic and waste were found in one such dump in the port-city of Surabaya on the island of Java. Brands that are not sold in Indonesia could be identified in the stacks of rubbish.

“There’s this narrative in developing countries that if you want to manage your waste properly, look at developed countries. What is less known is, actually, developed countries aren’t doing that much better, they’re just sending their waste to us,” says Mafira.

Tracking exactly where New Zealand products ended up is also a sticking point.

“When we export to overseas countries we lose that accountability,” Greenpeace plastics campaigner Emily Hunter says. “We know there are illegal markets that do spring up, that are really just pushing our problems further and further into land, air and the ocean.”

Mafira says it is a “no brainer” that certain types of plastics, those with low value and are hard to recycle, should be phased out altogether.

When Plastik Diet set in motion moves to decrease the use of single use plastic bags in Indonesia, they found out the hard way that government, business and consumers must be onboard simultaneously to achieve that goal.

Market forces alone are not enough, governments must be prepared to intervene, and consumers have to be educated.

What is Indonesia actually doing about its problems in this area?

Greenpeace Indonesia is also against overseas countries sending their plastic to their country, describing it as overlapping their efforts to reduce their plastic pollution issues.

“This country has a very serious problem about the plastic. It’s very sad for us, for Indonesian people that know that Indonesia has this big, serious problems about plastic pollutants,” says Greenpeace Indonesia urban campaigner Muharram Atha Rasyadi.

Greenpeace Indonesia has worked with their government, with one initiative combining Islam with environmentalism, urging people to go plastic-free during Ramadan.

The Government in Jakarta is committed to a 20% reduction in waste this year, and 70% by 2025. Waste to Energy schemes are being explored and $1 billion has been pledged to help clean up ocean waste.

The island of Bali has implemented a partial ban on plastic bags and straws, and the Jakarta Provincial Government is also exploring a ban on bags.

In Surabaya, a city of about three million people, a bottle deposit scheme lets passengers pay with plastic, the scheme collecting 12 tonnes of plastic for recycling in the first three months.

Some private businesses are also jumping onboard, with one health facility swapping plastics for health insurance, and another taking plastic as payment for doctor visits.

In Bali’s Green School, local children can exchange their recyclables for English lessons.

“The issue with plastic is that we’re demanding [progress] to be faster than it normally would because of how disastrous the situation is. We really need change fast, not later,” Mafira says.

Despite the initiatives, current trajectories suggest that seems unlikely.

“The reality is, with industry, the projections for growth are quite staggering for new virgin plastic,” says Hunter. “Currently the projection by the plastic industry is that they’re going to double plastic production in the next 20 years and quadruple it by 2050.”

That’s why Greenpeace New Zealand is asking for government-led solutions including levies, fees and bottle deposit schemes.

In a recent survey carried out by Colmar Brunton, called Better Futures, it found the single-issue New Zealanders care most deeply about is plastic waste. The proportion of respondents worried about the build-up of plastic in the environment is now 72% - more than the number concerned about the cost of living, the protection of New Zealand children and suicide rates.

It found Kiwis were increasingly committed to altering to sustainable lifestyles, with 42% ‘highly committed’ in 2018, up from 30% in 2017 and 25% in 2016. The survey pointed to an “obvious need and opportunity” for Government and business to provide and push for sustainable choices for New Zealanders.

Social and environmental responsibility of businesses was also found to be of great importance to consumers, with 90% of respondents saying they would stop buying products or using services from irresponsible or unethical companies.

However, despite these good consumer intentions, only 1% of those buying lunch from a takeaway consistently use reusable containers.

New Zealand’s crackdown on plastic bags saw consumers take the front foot on plastic bags, presenting a petition to Parliament which ultimately contributed to businesses and government cracking down.

Ahead of an outright ban, set to come into force mid-2019, there has already been a noticeable shift which can be seen at any supermarket, and consumers who always or mostly use reusable bags jumped from just 30% in 2017 to 84% in 2018, according to the Colmar Brunton survey.

Consumers are ready for change, but recycling reliance on countries like Indonesia looks like it will remain.

Paul Evans, who was at the time chief executive of WasteMINZ, the representative body for the waste industry in New Zealand, expects Indonesia to remain an important destination for our plastic waste. And says we are “naïve” if we don’t accept we have a role in plastic pollution issues in Indonesia.

“The idea that we are going to be able to deal with everything within New Zealand, I don’t think that is a reality. We have a much smaller manufacturing industry than we used to, so that demand for raw materials is lower.”

He thinks New Zealand needs to grasp the opportunity that high-grade plastics 1 and 2 hold, reprocess those onshore alongside policy initiatives to drive recycling demand and a decrease in the use of zero-value plastics 3-7. And for a timeframe, this needed to happen yesterday.

“We need to look at them and be saying, should we be using all of those materials in the first place?”

So, what should New Zealand do?

Right now, New Zealand has the capability to recycle all of plastics 1, and probably most of 2, agrees Hoffart from the Zero Waste Network.

He recommends legislation of a minimum of 25 to 30% recycled content in packaging as “that would create a demand on the back end for all of this plastic that currently doesn’t have a value”.

And he notes that another alternative, compostable plastic, comes with its own cost. “You still have to make it every time, to remake it you still need factories and virgin material and production.”

Plastics NZ CEO Designate Rachel Barker believes that all plastics should be reused and recycled, but when it can’t be, the energy from plastics can be recovered to power homes, vehicles and businesses.

“To date the NZ government has been unwilling to discuss this option for New Zealand waste.

“Non-reusable, non-recyclable waste of all types is converted into energy, thereby reducing the need for landfilling which is the least desirable option due to high environmental impacts.”

Barker says Plastics NZ were working with industry and the Government to encourage sorting of plastic 5, which includes yogurt, dip, margarine, ice-cream and takeaway containers.

“There is local demand for recycled polypropylene and this is the next largest percentage by polymer type that goes into kerbside collection.”

Educator Kate Meads, of Waste Free with Kate, echoes the views of Tiza Mafira of Diet Kantong Plastik.

“I work for 47 councils around New Zealand and one of the things I have learnt is there is very little a council can do to reduce the waste because ultimately, they are not the producer,” Meads says.

“There needs to be a combined effort from government, industry and consumer in my opinion.”

She views unnecessary packaging as one of the key problems to be tackled and is supported in that view by James Griffin, of the Sustainable Business Network, who says the best method to reduce the amount of single use plastic is to eliminate problematic packaging in the first place.

He says businesses were at the forefront of the banning of plastic bags but have reservations about imposing other changes such as minimum recycled content in plastic products. Noting New Zealand’s size, he says any legislation would need to be in line with other larger markets.

“Firstly, the New Zealand based supply of recycled material is currently limited due to lack of onshore processing facilities. The New Zealand supply side would need to be developed, which needs to happen anyway of course, so we can deal with our waste to a greater extent.”