For years, a steady stream of waste materials has made its way into landscapes, landfills, waterways, and garbage incinerators, but now creative people have turned garbage into handicraft and art products and begun marketing them.

Recycling is the process of converting waste material into new treasures or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

Along with recycling, re-using and re-purposing are also good ways to make sure non-biodegradable objects do not end up in the landfill. 

In the light of this, the Cleanliness and Landscaping Service of Musirawas Utara district in the Indonesian province of South Sumatra has been able to transform household waste into economically valuable handicrafts.

"Utilizing waste to make economically valuable handicrafts can also help environmental cleanliness from household trash," Musirawas Utara Cleanliness and Landscaping Service spokesperson Herawati remarked Friday.

Processing household waste into valuable handicrafts was also in line with the recommendation of the local government in the so-called 3R program such as Reuse, Reduce, and Recycle that will be implemented beginning 2016, she said.

The 3R program, besides producing organic fertilizers for hydroponic plants, will also utilize waste plastic and used cloth to make craft bags, and mats, apart from tissue and pen boxes, according to her.

"All household waste material can be turned into economically valuable handicrafts to supplement the income of craftsmen, in addition to making the Musirawas Utara district clean of trash," she noted.

Since the expansion to separate from the Musirawas district in 2013, the new autonomous district of Musirawas Utara remains categorized as a disadvantaged region, and dirty with household rubbish scattered about, Herawati noted.

But the 3R waste management system can be implemented by everyone in their daily activities with the guidance of Cleanliness and Landscaping Service officers, she added.

The officers will provide training to the public in the smallest neighborhood community and gradually run it up to the village and sub-district community, she said. 

The implementation of the 3R system is one of the waste management solutions, in addition to processing it into compost and electricity, according to her.

The Cleanliness and Landscaping Service in the future also has a program to process plastic resin because it has a good prospect, but for now it has yet to be executed because of the absence of a plastic resin processing machine.

Waste that cannot be processed into a household economic activity, will be used to fill areas that are hollow, and can also be used as bio gas and electric power, Herawati said.

Utilization of household waste to create new revenue source of the society, can also be a chance for Musi Rawas Utara district to receive the Adipura environmental awards for clean and green cities.

Further, with hard work and creativity in managing the household waste, it can at least make the district of Musirawas Utara clean, beautiful, and free from the accumulation of garbage, she noted.

She was grateful for the 3R program of the government, because it can endlessly raise additional revenue, as long as waste production is still there.

"With the 3R program, the public can get knowledge and additional income, and therefore, we hope the program will continue to be improved in the future," she said.

Besides Musirawas Utara district, the Tarakan city administration in North Kalimantan has also applied the universal waste program to maintain environmental cleanliness.

The universal waste program has been applied at Pamusin village as a pilot project for other villages in North Kalimantan, Sofyan Raga, the mayor of Tarakan, remarked last Friday.

Such a program was considered successful in reducing scattered trash, so the measure has also been adopted by other villages in Tarakan, such as Selumit, Selumit Pantai, Sebengkok, and Karang Harapan, in addition to Kampung Empat, according to him. 

"The universal waste program of the Tarakan city administration involves all public elements to participate in keeping the environment clean without using a trash bin," Sofyan remarked.

With the program, the community members are not allowed to use trash cans in front of their houses, because the garbage collectors will go directly to each house to collect the trash before disposal in the landfills, he said.

"The garbage collectors are rewarded by the owner of the trash without a specified nominal but adjusted to the sincerity of the citizens in the form of contributions paid each month," he noted.

Through the program, the homeowners no longer need to get out of their homes just to dump the trash into the trash cans, because every day the garbage collectors come directly to pick it up, he said.

"Thus, the homeowners do not need to get out of their houses to dump the garbage, the garbage collectors are always ready every day to pick it up," Raga said.

All trash cans scattered on the roadside will be demolished with the local governments commitment to maintain cleanliness to the fullest without any more garbage strewn on the roadside to rot, the mayor also asserted.

In line with the universal waste program, by the end of 2016 the city of Tarakan will no longer have trash cans littering the streets, Sofyan Raga noted.

Waste management is all those activities and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal.

This includes among other things, collection, transport, treatment and disposal of waste together with monitoring and regulation.

It also encompasses the legal and regulatory framework that relates to waste management encompassing guidance on recycling etc.

With the universal waste management program in the city of Tarakan, the local community will sooner or later fully enjoy safe and reliable waste collection services provided by the citys leading environmental services provider

Source: ANTARA