From Policy Presence to Policy Performance: Adaptive Improvisation and the Everyday Politics of Plastic Burning Bans in Rural Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Open burning plastics is a major environmental health hazard in low‐ and middle‐income countries, releasing toxic pollutants and exacerbating climate change. Although Indonesia prohibits plastic burning, enforcement in rural settings remains fragile. This study explores how frontline actors, communities and local governments navigate the ban under fragile infrastructures, entrenched cultural practices and uneven power relations. We conducted a qualitative multiple‐case study in three districts in East Java—Malang, Gresik and Banyuwangi. The data comprised 105 semi‐structured interviews and 108 focus group discussions (FGDs) with participants who were frontline health providers, village officials, community members and residents living with chronic conditions. Thematic analysis, supported by NVivo, combined inductive coding with theoretical frameworks of street‐level bureaucracy, institutional bricolage, negotiated governance, everyday resistance and political ecology. Enforcement unfolded as adaptive improvisation rather than linear implementation. Five themes were identified: (1) adaptive improvisation through negotiation and persuasion, where cadres substituted advisories and socialisation for sanctions; (2) adaptive improvisation through compromise with cultural practices, reframing compliance as spatial displacement, tacit tolerance, or avoidance of conflict; (3) adaptive improvisation through bricolage of infrastructural and institutional gaps, as households relied on burning due to absent or fragile waste services; (4) adaptive improvisation through health adaptations and economic rationalities, with residents adopting masks, selling recyclables, or burning residual plastics, thereby shifting responsibility downward; and (5) adaptive improvisation through negotiating external accountability and innovation, where communities appealed to industries via Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or proposed technical innovations, though uptake was limited. Plastic burning bans in rural Indonesia persist symbolically but remain fragile in practice. Effective and equitable governance requires investment in waste infrastructure, empowerment of village‐level enforcement and stronger industrial accountability. Embedding burning reduction within broader commitments to health equity and climate action is essential to move beyond symbolic regulation towards sustainable protection.