Essentially all Indonesians in my village and surrounding
area throw their trash anywhere and everywhere. They are astonished when I whip
out a plastic bag and put my ice cream wrapper into it while we are watching a
parade. Americans are frequently referenced during our flag ceremonies as hebat (awesome) people who hold onto
their garbage until they find a trashcan.
While burning trash is technically illegal, who’s watching?
Every afternoon my neighbors use their straw brooms to sweep up the fallen
leaves and chucked food wrappers into a little pile and set it on fire. Makes
quite the smell some days.
So Indonesian villages have a long way to go in terms of
trash collection (cities have garbage trucks that come once a week). However,
turns out their recycling is actually WAY better than the US!!
After watching the documentary “Addicted to Plastic,” I can
safely say that the US recycling process is not nearly as effective as we are
made to believe. 100 billion pounds of plastic produced in the US each year,
only about 5% recycled. (documentary statistic) One of the biggest issues is
that there are many different kinds of plastic. One plastic drinking could be
made of four different plastics: the label, the bottle, the cap, and the safety
seal. Plastic cannot be recycled all together like this; the different types of
plastics have to be separated first before they can be melted down into a new
product.
So
that Aquafina water bottle you just
recycled? May not end up being recycled at all.
Manufactures have to talk to each other and coordinate the
types of plastics they are using so that one product is all one plastic. Then
it can be recycled. Perhaps in the future a sorting machine will be able to
distinguish between these plastics, but right now, that is not reality. So we’d
have to dig through the recycling ourselves and sort it out, pull apart the
pieces.
Are
you willing?
I can’t name one person I know who’d be willing to sit day
in and out for the next 10 years of their life would sift through recycled
products all day, rip them apart, and put them in their assorted piles.
But guess what? Indonesians are willing. And it’s a booming
business. Started within the last 15-20 years, recycling, or mendaur ulang, has become a huge sector
that employees a ton of people. My village and surrounding area are known for
its recycling businesses. So I went in literally over my head to take a look.
 |
| In front of Indah's house |
When people throw trash away, it may be burned or may be put
in a pile in the backyard. Allegedly, people walk around and pick up certain
items that they want to collect (like bottles or old containers), and sell
these to distributers, who then put the mixed plastic items into big white
bags.
Enter Ita’s dad. My friend’s recycling business starts with
her father, who drives to other kabupatens
(counties) in East Java to the distributers. The distributers weigh these bags
by the ton and sell them to the small business owners. Ita’s dad returns with a
truckful of these big white bags of plastics.
 |
| Ita's dad |
 |
| Could these trucks be any more full!? |
 |
| Ready to tip ova! |
He sells the huge white bags to his acquaintances, including
his neighbor and brother-in-law, Indah’s dad.
Next, Indah’s dad hires men and women to work from about 8
AM to 4 PM Monday-Friday to sort through this recycled plastic. Most of it is
dirty, as it was picked out of the trash first.
 |
| Shoe pile! |
 |
| The sorting baskets |
 |
| The bottle basket |
The first sorting round is by type of plastic. These lads
and lasses know exactly what type of plastic it is by just looking at it.
Pretty legit if you ask me. Sometimes the item is mixed, so they have to grab
their hand axe and break it apart.
 |
| Axe man |
Next, they take all the same type of plastic and sort it by
color.
The basket is sent to the back of the compound where it is
entered into this gas-run machine and ground up into little pieces.
Because the machine requires that the plastic be mixed with
water during the grinding process, the plastic bits then have to be dried.
 |
| Mas Sovi |
After this, they can be put back into big bags and sold back
to a collector. This collector will buy from lots of small business owners in
order to accrue lots of these sorted plastics and then sell them to the
recycling factories, which accept bags that are already sorted with the same
material and same colored plastics.
Most every little thing is reused and recycled. For the few
things that are not, they are still collected into the official trash pile and
then sold again. In my area, brick-building businesses by the garbage to burn
as fuel for their brick ovens.
Do we have landfills in my area? Nope. Everything is
recycled or burned.
Despite all this trash burning, Indonesians’ contribution to
depletion of the ozone is minimal. 2010 carbon emissions estimates one American emits 17.6 tons of carbon dioxide per year, whereas one Indonesian emits 2 tons of carbon a year (source: United States Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC)).
Salaries:
·
Men who grind the plastic with the very noisy
machines earn about 40,000 Rp (~ 4 USD) a day from Indah’s dad.
·
A new, rather inexperienced women who sits and
sorts the plastics makes about 20,000 Rp (~2 USD) a day.
·
A more seasoned female sorter makes a maximum of
25,000 Rp (~ 2.5 USD) a day.
·
As a US “volunteer,” I make 66,000 Rp (~ 6.6
USD) a day.
·
New teachers in my village who are not yet
certified as civil servants (requires teaching for at least 5 years) may make
as little as 10,000 Rp (~1 UD) a day.
Recycled Fashion Show:
My school was recently certified as a “Go Green” school.
This means they planted a lot of plants in front of the classrooms and gave
every classroom 3 garbage bins. One for organic garbage, one for wet garbage
and one for…well, it’s unclear. Some say hazardous waste (it’s a red bin), but
what hazardous materials are the students’ bringing to school, I ask? Some say
it’s for recyclables. But what that entails is unclear. So despite these three
bins, basically I think I may be one of the few people in the school who more
or less knows where to sort my trash. Carleton trained me well!
Anyways, to impress the people from the government office
that were accrediting us and to motivate the students to…love recycling??...we
had a recycled outfit fashion show. Which really meant that each class made 2
dresses and the girls wore them during the parade for our school’s birthday. I
was pumped for a runway, but that simply was not in the works.
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| Viola, Rukhana and Henny (class X-4) |
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| Ririn and Dina (class X-2) |
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| Sovi (IPS I) |
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| Irfa and Lilis (IPS II) |
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| 10th grade student, Desi and Ririn |
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| Ayu (class X-4) |
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| Dian and Iva (IPA) |
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| Luki and Ninik (IPA and IPS II) |
Students’ Essays:
My students recently wrote hortatory essays on a topic of their choosing. Most of them wrote about the environment, pollution, flooding, corruption, and drugs. Here are some excerpts of their wisdom on recycling/pollution/trash (also translated as rubbish, dirty, garbage, and just plain dirt by more than one student!). They first wrote outlines in Indonesian, translated them, made a rough draft that I extensively corrected, and then typed it up.
It is very safe to say that these are five of my very, very best students!
Check out their typing, too. It’s an interesting insight into the lack of learning they have had on a) typing, b) punctuation, c) capitalization, things I believe should transcend whatever language is being used.
GARBAGE
By Lia
Now, cleanliness has become something seldom, because of man people are not attentive impact of rubbish. The fact, that a growing world population, especially in indonesia is increasing waste contributes. Why waste become very important to consider??
First, many people throw rubbish carelesly,lattering and clogging the waterways. That’s because they still lack awareness about enviromental sanitation and the threat that is posed by indiscriminate garbage. Need awareness to create change.
Second, trash triggers many problems, such as: flooding, health, and bad impacts on the water drainage. Therefore , there is a need for socialization in the community about the impact of lattering , such as dangue fever. Role of goverment is needed here.
Third, trash also disrupts the bauty and comfort of the environment. Because of the garbage strewn everywhere in shelters or trash piles, it’s really very bad to see. Besides, the garbage stench also be quite disturbing.
Put should not be wrapped,so that is does not produce waste.
And than goverments need to provide cleaning supplies,such us organic and non organic trash cans,reguler hygiene monitoring and survising.
Environtment
By Munawir
The rubbish in the public facility should be managed it. Perhaps the environtment has to give laws to people, in order that they them. When the government just does nothing, the government is never clean.
When there’s rubbish trow in the garbage bin, the government will be clean. Perhaps we have to keep a clean environment. With a clean environment, we will feel fresh and relaxed. Society must trow rubbish in t he garbage bin, the yellow colour means the dry rubbish, the red colour means dangerous and the green colour means organic rubbish.
Society can recycle rubbish, in order to decrease it. Plastic rubbish can be recycled to become anything, such as : a bag, a shoes, a hat, etc. it is very benecifial for creative people. The cheap things are changet to become expensive materials.
Organic rubbish can be used for manuare. Organic rubbish can be made fro plants, such as : dry leaves, rotten vegetables and fruits. Organic rubbish is used to manure rice plants, corn plants, etc. organic manure is cheaper than chemistry manure.
In conclution, the government should makes laws for when people trow rubbish in the wrong place. In order that they have a responsibility to the environment and the law. The government must prepare a recycle bins in the public facility. In order that society feels fresher. Perhaps in the clean environment , we can take a breath of fresh. Therefore, we as humans have to prevent littering.
Trash
By Mudria
Trash is one of the of reason for the problem of health in Indonesia. So, please keep the environment from trash. In order that you will be healthier and to avoid accumulation of trash and we make to place throw trash in order that trash not be in the every place.
When people throw trash in the garbage basket, the environment will be more beautiful, because our environment is beautiful, the air which we breathe will taste fresh too. We can refresh our thoughts so that we are far from stress.
Trash is one of the problems happening in our big cities. For example in Jakarta, because multitude of people in Jakarta throw trash in the rivers. Water in the river can’t flow because it is closed by trash. They should not throw trash every where in order. That their place be clean and beautiful.
Trash can be changed into money in the hands of people who are creative. With the procedure, things which are useful, for example newspaper traces, can be changed into blouse which very pretty. The new things can have an expensive value.
In order that our environment be visibly clean and beautiful, the government should give sanction and fines to people who fling trash randomly in order that, they are intimidated and do not repeat that. To avoid accumulation, are before discarding trash. We have to isolate it organic trash and inorganic trash in order to process the trash easily.
The trash
By Irfa
In this era cleanliness should always espesialy the trash problem be reducedbut many people do notknow that it is importaint to throw trash in the tras can beacause theare not used to doing it
If the trash problem in indonesia is reduced pollution will be reduced the trash problem society can small things suchas trowwtrash in the trash can this should be done because pollution can cause trobel healty
Everyone should throw trash in the trash can everyone throwtrash in the trash can. The environment will bne better because trash in the road and publik areas. When there is trash in publik areas everyone will feel happy in the publik areas
They shouldpay attention to life healty because healt is importaint for make their life betteer they can start being clean suchas throwing trash in the trash can
The government should maketrash can spesifically for the rabbis the government musah process trash so that there isnot bad smell
If government makes the trash canspesifically for the rubbis and trash we can reduced pollution
Drainage System
By Ninik
The drainage system should be free of rubbish. Drainage very important for the environment and our health. If there is dirty drainage, it can disturb our health. If there is dirty drainage, the environment will be come bad.
When the water channel is slowed down by rubbish, it makes a bad smell. A bad smell causes disturbing odors. It makes air pollution, and the drainage becomes dirty.
Water channels that are full of rubbish can causes floods. Much rubbish in the drainage will disturb health and make floods because the rain water I word flow. Floods can cause diarrhea. We will not have enough clean water supply and that disturbs our activities.
If the water channel is clean, the environment will become healthy and beautiful. The air is clean. We should away from floods.
Everyone should take care of the water channel better. Everyone must a clean environment. Everyone can do reforestation and crop rotation. Everyone have to throw the rubbish in the dustbin, and not throw the rubbish everywhere. In order to keep the water channel clean, the government and the citizens should cooperate to protect the environment. To cooperate, everyone must build balance between government and the citizens. The government should socialize the citizens about the importance of drainage.
