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Putting Waste to Productive Use in
Indonesia

Overview

Most communities in Indonesia have no access to formal waste management leading to wide spread dumping and burning of waste.

Our vision is to enable thousands of community-owned, sustainable waste collection and recycling programs across Indonesia bringing effective and affordable waste management to millions. We started with a successful pilot in Sanur Kauh, Bali in 2019 and are now on track to reach 125,000 people by 2022 through our Rethinking Recycling Academy initiative, which transforms waste management systems of whole cohorts of villages at once. In addition, we are working with corporate players on the demand side to create traceability and transparency, improve logistics, and build local markets to reliably absorb the supply of recycled materials on an ongoing basis at a fair price. In the coming years, we plan to scale our solutions across Indonesia and to other countries in Asia.

Rethinking Recycling - Bali

Initiatives

The Challenge

In Indonesia, there are nearly a thousand facilities, known as TPS3Rs, meant to provide waste collection service, sort dry recyclables for sale, and process organic waste into compost. Many of these facilities lie idle, leaving communities to burn or dump mixed waste in unmanaged landfills, with disastrous consequences for the environment and public health. This situation is common across Southeast Asia, which has drawn attention for the severity of its waste crisis—ocean plastic leakage in particular. But such idle sites also present tremendous opportunity: infrastructure that can be rapidly transformed into a productive recycling ecosystem.

Proof-of-Concept: Desa Kedas (Clean Village)

In 2019 we launched our first pilot in Indonesia, in an urban village called Sanur Kauh in Bali’s capital city Denpasar, working with the local community to transform their TPS3R. The residents chose the name Desa Kedas for this effort, which is Balinese for “Clean Village.”

Together we supported households in building new recycling behaviours, optimized collection and sorting operations, integrated independent local waste collectors, and upskilled workers and community members. 

 

In less than four months, Sanur Kauh’s TPS3R went from losing money to being profitable and financially self-sustaining. At the same time, we transformed recycling and composting productivity, doubled workers’ wages, and provided them access to critical social programs such as health care.

Today, Desa Sanur Kauh serves as a demonstration and learning site for the Rethinking Recycling Academy, ​​an initiative designed to catalyze the transformation of waste management systems in multiple communities at once. The Sanur Kauh TPS3R has been celebrated by Indonesian ministries and heralded as the gold standard for community-driven waste management.

Scale-up Initiative: Rethinking Recycling Academy

The Rethinking Recycling Academy is an innovative hybrid initiative of digitally-delivered capability building, on-the-ground implementation support, and access to up-front capital. This approach enables us to work with whole cohorts of villages at once, to rapidly set up productive and financially stable waste management systems in their communities.

In 2020 we launched the Rethinking Recycling Academy in six villages in Denpasar, which are now in implementation phase and—on track to bring recycling services to 125,000 people by the end of 2022.

Learn More About The Rethinking Recycling Academy

Our Impact

125k
Number of people we are on track to reach with recycling and waste management services by 2022, most of whom had no access to these services before
~250
Community workers and stakeholders trained through our Rethinking Recycling Academy sessions
200%
Increase in salary achieved for 80+ waste workers

Approach

Partnering to Scale Impact Across
Indonesia and Southeast Asia

Our partners across the waste management ecosystem have been vital to our scaling initiative, the Rethinking Recycling Academy’s success. For delivering capability building, we’ve drawn on the global waste management expertise of Avfall Norge, through the programme Clean Oceans through Clean Communities (CLOCC), the digital education expertise of Quipper, and the deep local insight of recycling innovator EcoBali. Our funding partners, like the Alliance to End Plastic Waste have made development of the Academy content possible, while other partners such as WWF through its Plastic Smart Cities initiative and PRAISE have supported infrastructure investments as villages implement their Academy learnings. We also partner closely with the Indonesian ministries that enable coordinated buildout of and investment in waste management systems nationally. And of course, the true protagonists of the Academy are the communities themselves, leading transformations that they own and co-design from day one.

With each new cohort we will learn what works and refine our materials and processes allowing us to scale more efficiently. Our goal is to expand into other parts of Indonesia and Southeast Asia in the coming years.


Leveraging Technology

As part of the on-the-ground support component of the Academy, we have built digital tools to boost and accelerate positive change across multiple communities. We believe human-centered technology is key to achieving impact at the scale and speed that the waste crisis demands.

Based on working hand-in-hand with local waste management operators, we developed an operations platform to meet the urgent need for reliable operational data and professionalizing business practices. Features of this web and mobile app include customer management, automated payments and payment tracking, waste material tracking, and sales tracking of recyclable materials and compost, all designed for a manual labor and limited digital literacy context. On-time and accurate payments by customers have gone up dramatically, and site managers are able to quickly identify and troubleshoot operational or financial issues.

Digital technology also holds great promise for improving and sustaining recycling habits. With our WhatsApp chatbot (named Ami, short for “Ayomilah” or “Let’s sort” in Bahasa), community members and program champions get immediate answers about what’s recyclable, what’s compostable, collection days for different waste categories, and when payments are due. The chatbot also sends personalized messages to remind people how to sort their waste correctly, and early results show improved sorting accuracy and participation by pilot customers.

Follow our Recycling Chatbot Ami


Building Supply, Increasing Demand

We have hosted design workshops with local nonprofits, recycling companies, and corporate end buyers, including one of the largest association of packaging and recycling companies – PRAISE, whose founding members include the largest consumer goods companies in Indonesia:  Coca-Cola Indonesia, Danone Indonesia, PT Indofood Sukses Makmur Tbk., PT Nestlé  Indonesia, Tetra Pak Indonesia, and PT Unilever Indonesia Tbk. These workshops highlighted the keys to unlocking the productivity of Indonesia’s recycling ecosystem: reliable supply at scale for recycling processors; pricing and quality within competitive range of virgin materials; traceability to enable inventory tracking and prevention of environmental and human rights abuses. We’re now turning to solving these supply chain and demand challenges in collaboration with local and global corporate partners.

What’s Ahead

  • Expanding Rethinking Recycling Academy across Bali to reach more than 2 million people
  • Expanding to other parts of Indonesia, such as rural island areas
  • Accelerating investment in recycling industry capacity
  • Bringing traceability and transparency throughout the value chain, through digital and process innovations
  • Applying what we’ve learned across Southeast Asia and our work in Latin America

Our Indonesia Team

Mufti Almufarid
Associate
Gilang Ardana
Senior Associate
Winny Arindrani
Mckinsey & Company Fellow
Sintha Aryaningrat
Coordinator
Tethy Cahyati
Senior Coordinator
Sathya Deva
Associate
Surya Dharma
Change Agent
Tika Diagenstya
Senior Associate
Dwi Dharmiyanti
Associate
Andina Dwi Kanti
Coordinator
Inten Gianina
Senior Coordinator
Widi Ginanjar
Senior Coordinator
Tri Dewanti Handayani
Senior Education Associate
Laura Harjanto
Associate
Siti Hotimah
Affiliated Waste Worker
Donny Julius
Associate
Wija Kusumastuti
Senior Associate
Harry McGuire
Project Lead
I Made Cahya Narayana
Coordinator
Brian Obie
Change Agent
Glenn Mardianto Prasetya
Digital Senior Associate
Sri Ayu Pratiwi
Finance Agent
Trisna Putu
Coordinator
Imam Rezki
Senior Coordinator
Muhamad Ruslan
Change Agent
Arum Sabrina
Human Resources Lead
Dewa Made Juli Santika
Change Agent
Novena Parengkuan
Coordinator
Aditya Rachman
Program Manager
Djun Saripurnawan
Senior Coordinator
Boogie Setiawan
Senior Associate
Indra Setiawardana
Project Lead
Hadohoan (Doan) Simaremare
Operations Associate
Siswoyo
Affiliated Waste Worker
Metilova Sitorus
Coordinator
Tomo Soleh
Affiliated Waste Worker
I Nyoman Sukarja
Affiliated Waste Worker
Pasek Supande
Agent
Ade Awang Surya
Agent
Maung Sutikno
Senior Associate
Wildan Teddy
Senior Coordinator
Oming Nyoman Wibawa
Agent
Ayu Winastri
Coordinator

Indonesia Partners

Walmart.org
Together, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation generally provide more than $1 billion in cash and in-kind to support programs that align with their philanthropic priorities. They focus on areas where we can do the most good - combining the unique strengths of the business alongside our philanthropy.
The Alliance to End Plastic Waste
The Alliance to End Plastic Waste is an international non-profit partnering with government, environmental and economic development NGOs and communities around the world to address the challenge to end plastic waste in the environment. Through programmes and partnerships, the Alliance focuses on solutions in four strategic areas: infrastructure, innovation, education and engagement, and clean up. As of January 2021, the Alliance has more than 50 member companies and supporters representing global companies and organisations across the plastic value chain. For more information, visit: www.endplasticwaste.org
Amcor
Amcor is a global leader in developing and producing responsible packaging for food, beverage, pharmaceutical, medical, home and personal-care, and other products. Amcor works with leading companies around the world to protect their products and the people who rely on them, differentiate brands, and improve supply chains through a range of flexible and rigid packaging, specialty cartons, closures, and services. The company is focused on making packaging that is increasingly light-weighted, recyclable and reusable, and made using an increasing amount of recycled content. Around 46,000 Amcor people generate $13 billion in annual sales from operations that span about 225 locations in 40-plus countries.
Avfall Norge
Avfall Norge organizes the Norwegian recycling industry and their stakeholders across geography and sectors. We represent over 200 different companies that work in waste management, recycling and recycled raw materials. Our members are IKSs / municipalities, private recycling companies, recycling companies, entrepreneurs, suppliers and consultants.
Plastic Smart Cities
Plastic Smart Cities is a WWF initiative working with cities worldwide to keep plastic out of nature. Since 2018, the initiative supports cities and coastal centres that are taking bold action to stop plastic pollution. WWF is working with 25 pilot cities to achieve a 30% reduction in plastic leakage by 2025, through better waste management and advancing circular economy. Together, we aim to achieve 1000 plastic-smart cities globally to join this movement by 2030. For more information, visit plasticsmartcities.org.
PRAISE
PRAISE, the Packaging and Recycling Association for Indonesia Sustainable Environment, is an alliance established by six founding companies—Coca-Cola, Danone, Indofood, Nestlé, Tetra Pak, and Unilever Indonesia. Its purpose is to create and enable a sustainable ecosystem that transforms packaging waste into a high value resource, bringing economic, social, and environmental benefits to Indonesia.

Rethinking Recycling Academy’s (organization’s) work on the ground has really inspired us to look at an integrated recycling solution for Bali that empowers the community to solve their waste management challenges. Not only does it impact the environment, the work also enables change for the waste workers and the ecosystem. We look forward to continue learning and working with you.

Rofi Alhanif
Assistant Deputy of Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Investment, Indonesia