Zero waste and environment in Indonesia (part I)

Understanding creative solutions for the local problems was one of the point of my interest. As I was living 10 months in Indonesia, I could observe that the waste problem is emerging topic. Uncontrollable landfills and rivers covered by plastic islands are for the people involved in environmental issues nothing new. Therefore I wanted to speak with Indonesians, who care about those issues and make active changes. I decided to talk with the organisations involved in the zero waste and organic topic. To my surprise, in Bandung I found many organisations oriented to community education on waste. Moreover, there is an online platform for “trash mapping” focused on places where people can recycle their garbage. Activities of organisations seem promising and the challenge for the future years will be to bring this topic to higher places of government. Success also depends on the implementation of effective waste management control. During my journey, I managed to talk with two organisations – YPBB and Greenaration Foundation.

Campaign. Source of image: Facebook YPBB [1]

YPBB

YPBB logo

Interview was held with Fictor Ferdinand, Deputy Executive Director of YPBB.

YPBB (Foundation for Biosciences and Biotechnology Development) is non-profit organisation involved in the topic of sustainable lifestyle and nature. Through their activities, they provide educational background for a people in the topics of waste management, harmonious and organic lifestyle.

ZeroWaste Lifestyle training aims to educate people about waste problems and solution in order to eliminate garbage production by households. They promote an organic lifestyle with campaigns like Campaign Zero Waste, Natural Earth, Sustainability Compass Training or City Train. Toward the future, they will focus on the long-term waste management in the Bandung city. The vision of the organisation is to build a whole system, where people can achieve high life quality.

Campaign YPBB

One of the current activity of YPBB is Zero waste city programme. Fiktor comments: “Our aim is to build a model of wasting reduction and organic waste processing on the local scale. We want to spread our processing rules around rural areas. In the community, we are working on policy how to regulate and support waste segregation. Now, there is not a clear policy how communities can manage their waste.” The zero waste campaign started from 2015 and YPBB rely on trainings and building community awareness about this topic on the small scale.

On a bigger scale, the organisation wants to focus on the model programme for waste management. They took 3 testing places in the urban and rural area in the surrounding of Bandung. The big city is represented by Bandung, urban suburb area is Cimahi and village Soreang. “YPBB with the support of local government helps these places to take part in waste management. The situation is, that they don’t know what happens with waste in their area. Therefore, we work with local government and help them to build a system that community can easily segregate and transport waste to processing facilities. We make research about conditions and afterwards consultation with local government. Furthermore, we have a series of education for the community, waste workers and community consultation in order to build a plan. We want to build complex master plan in waste management from operational to the financial point."

It was really interesting to ask about creativity in the terms of waste. Fictor replied: “Creativity is to see something from a different perspective. In waste issues, people are trapped in the current system and they don’t know how to achieve it. So what we do in the creativity is reinterpreting problem and see it from the different perspective and try to work on it.“

More information:

YPBB blog: http://ypbbblog.blogspot.com

YPBB facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ypbb.bandung/

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Image sources:

[1] Facebook YPBB: https://www.facebook.com/ypbb.bandung/photos/a.2013553625523533.1073741854.1719687388243493/2079196325625929/?type=3&theater

[2] http://ypbbblog.blogspot.com

[3] Facebook YPBB: https://www.facebook.com/ypbb.bandung/photos/a.2013553625523533.1073741854.1719687388243493/2078126175732944/?type=3&theater