Ary Adji, Jakarta Globe 28 Nov 09;
Hikayah Esia steps out of her car and her two children quickly join her at the vehicle’s trunk. Large plastic bags, containing everything from used coffee packets to a broken printer, are lifted out and placed on a desk that has a scale sitting on it. Behind the desk a girl welcomes the visitors to Bank Sampah, or the Garbage Bank.
Hikayah says she drives 10 kilometers from her home to deposit the garbage bags at Bank Sampah, located on Jalan Urip Sumohardjo in Bantul, Yogyakarta, because she knows the trip will be worth her trouble.
“I’ve been doing this for a month now,” said Hikayah, who works for a state university in Yogyakarta. Yuni, the girl behind the desk, weighs the garbage, logs the entry in a book and issues a receipt.
“The garbage is first recycled and then used to make products. Once the products are sold, part of the money goes to the client and part to the bank,” Yuni said.
Clients receive different percentages of the money depending on the kind of garbage they drop at the bank. Plastic packaging for detergent, foods and beverages is recycled and converted by a group of housewives into purses and shopping bags for sale. The proceeds are distributed equally between the client who dropped the garbage at the bank, those who recycled it and turned it into products and the bank.
“We offer full disclosure on how much we make from the processed waste,” Yuni said.
The money is normally distributed after two months, once the recycling process is completed.
“The client simply has to show the receipt indicating how much garbage they dropped off,” Yuni said.
Bank Sampah opened in February 2008 in response to health and safety concerns over the growing amount of refuse in the community and fears over the spread of dengue fever.
Residents of 12 neighborhood units in Bantul established the sanitation workshop led by Bambang Suwirda, who is a health lecturer in Yogyakarta.
The workshop was divided into units focusing on differing kinds of refuse. Three months later, the bank became fully operational. Located at a house that was destroyed in the 2006 earthquake, the facility does not have rooms like a regular bank.
Instead there are open spaces, some used for serving clients and others where carts and bags are stacked. The warehouse at the back of the house is where garbage bags are stored.
For a location dedicated to the collection of trash, Bank Sampah is remarkably clean. There is a desk with a scale for weighing garbage, plus benches where customers can wait to be served.
“We want to create a healthy neighborhood and convert garbage into valuable products,” said the bank’s director, Panut Susanto.
But it wasn’t easy to convince people that garbage could be turned into money.
“Initially we campaigned in village meetings, and with posters,” Panut said, adding that he and other founders had to pay for the organization’s overhead costs from their own pockets.
The bank, which opens on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., is manned by volunteers. Residents take turns recording, weighing and processing the garbage dropped at the center.
Every two weeks, the center collects 500 kilograms of garbage, most of which is paper and plastic bottles.
“That is bought by waste-processing companies that work with us. They pick up the garbage themselves,” said Panut. “Other kinds of waste we process ourselves.”
The center also processes powdered drink sachets, detergent and fabric softener packaging, and similar kinds of waste, which Panut said went to a group of housewives.
“They wash and sort them, then sew them into purses. A bag sells for Rp 30,000 [$3.20]. The bags are collected by vendors who come here,” he said. The housewives are paid a third of the proceeds of the bag sales.
“We’re developing a number of product designs and recruiting more housewives,” Panut said.
Polystyrene waste is mixed with cement and sand and molded into flagpole stands and planters.
The bank earns Rp 300,000 every month, taking in a total of Rp 2 million in capital since it started, an amount too small to justify paying salaries
Though the bank barely makes any money, interest is beginning to grow. There are now 12 garbage drop points in the area, where drums are provided for people to deposit bags of rubbish. A bank staffer goes around to collect the bags.
Bank Sampah has also begun accepting old car batteries, and within months will have its own building. Proof that garbage can be turned into money.
