Community Initiatives in Solid Waste Reduction, Sukunan Village, Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Iswanto. (2019) Community Initiatives in Solid Waste Reduction, Sukunan Village, Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. pp. 1-12.

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Abstract

Sukunan is a village in suburban area, located around 5 kilometers west of Yogyakarta’s city center. Before the community based waste management program was started in Sukunan, most of villagers burned, buried and disposed their waste on nearby unused plots of land or simply tossing it in irrigation canal and river to be carried away. In 2000 Sukunan farmers - fed up clearing trash carried by irrigation canal onto their rice fields - held the village meeting about the problem of plastic and other rubbish they were constantly finding strewn in their paddy fields. As a community member and academic, I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility to do something. In 2002, I carried out a simple observation research to scavenger’s activities in the Yogyakarta landfill site. I found that certain waste - plastic, paper, metal-glass- had significant economic value because they could be collected and sold to recycling plants. Beside that, I also did a simple experiment to solve the organic waste. I got a simple composting method with clay pots. Meanwhile my wife made some handicraft items from plastic sachets waste. Then I arranged a community based waste management system in 2003. Therefore my family began separating the household waste into 4 categories: plastic; paper; glass & metal; and organic. After 3 months, I sold the plastic paper-glass & metal waste to buyer (garbage traders) and I used the compost for plant fertilizer. I started to share my idea with other people and some leaders in the village. In January 2004, a Sukunan’s waste management team was established. The team and Sukunan leaders introduced the system to all people through many strategies and methods, such as demonstrations, games, competition, songs, poems, discussion, training, writing, diagrams, leaflets, appeal letters, face to face and other socially empowering approaches. The Sukunan youth has made and painted bins for separation rubbish. When earthquake of May 2006 was happened, which destroyed several houses in Sukunan, the community initiated to reuse Styrofoam from electronic packaging into bricks. Made from one part cement, three parts sand and three parts granulated Styrofoam, bricks were molded and dried in the sun, then used to rebuild five houses. For reducing the solid waste, Sukunan women also made environmentally friendly sanitary napkin for women (reusable) from cotton. Beside that the waste management team campaigned to avoid producing no-recycle and no-reuse items. The Sukunan’s program generated income for community and the village. There are now opportunities to run community businesses, such as making handicrafts, producing compost, producing Styrofoam bricks & plant pots, collecting and selling rubbish, establishing recycling facilities and running a business training centre. Many people from other areas visited Sukunan for learning the solid waste management system. They have attempted to replicate Sukunan’s recycling-reusing-reduction (3R) program in their areas. Both Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Public Work have published that Sukunan’s community based waste management program was included as the best practice for solid waste management in Indonesia since 2006. Now, more than a hundred villages in Yogyakarta and Central Java Province have replicated the Sukunan waste management system.

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