Citizens recycle waste

The human side of Yoslan Nur's paper on 'Waste management and recycling at the grassroots level/Jakarta Bay-Indonesia' was observed in the flesh on Friday, July 14th 2000, when representatives of international agencies visited two organic waste recycling sites in a low-income neighborhood in North Jakarta.

At the Kapuk Muara recycling center, they watched Rizal Fauzi, 12 years old, gluing a sheet of recycled paper onto a three-sided prism-shaped pencil holder. At a shed in an adjacent yard, the visitors looked at worms eating away at household organic waste to produce compost. Pak Mudakin Zaini, 63, the site compost manager, explained that the residents use the fertilizer for their garden plants. At the Pluit traditional market, a ten-minute drive away, the group saw how organic market waste was transformed into compost using the heap method. Pak Siregar, the market manager, showed the visitors ready to use compost in 1.6 kilo bags for sale at 2,000 rupiah (US$0.25) and a more refined variety that used worms selling for 3,000 rupiah.

At a meeting earlier in the day, the group listened to presentations from ordinary citizens on how they coped with local waste. Ibu Bambang Wahono, a homemaker at Banjarsari, Cilandak, South Jakarta, told how her community turned their household waste into compost. They used the fertilizer not only to grow medicinal plants, but also to sell at a monthly profit of 100,000 rupiah (US$12.50). Meanwhile, Endang Wardiningsih, a school teacher, described how her pupils at Public High School 34 in Pondok Labu, South Jakarta, learn to recycle waste paper and make compost with worms. Now other schools and local community groups ask her school for demonstrations in waste recycling.

The Greater Jakarta area has 20 million people and produces 25,000 cubic meters of solid waste daily, 4,000 cubic meters from traditional markets alone. The sobering fact is that 70% of the waste is organic and that some 1,400 cubic meters end up in Jakarta Bay everyday. The recycling activities at Banjarsari and Public High School 34, both about 15 kilometers inland from the coast, are small but meaningful measures to reduce the waste that originates in the city and ends up in the sea. More communities like Banjarsari and schools like PHS 34 can markedly reverse the garbage pressure on Jakarta Bay. What is needed are community leaders with communication skills and the burning zeal to spread the word on wise practices in organic waste management.