Women turn waste into handicrafts

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

One hundred housewives from Greater Jakarta joined a two-day workshop on garbage recycling that would earn them some income while helping protect the earth.

Josef Bataona, human resources and corporate relations director from Unilever Indonesia, which organized the event last week, said the workshop taught women to turn discarded plastic into handicrafts such as bags, hats and waste bins.

"We will help them sell the products in the local market and possibly overseas," he said.

Sartiti, a city environment official, said housewives could play a big role in recycling because they had more time to do it.

"I hope that by selling the products they can earn additional income for their families," she said.

On day one of last week's workshop participants listened to motivational talks on how to become an entrepreneur. The next day they received lessons on how to create handicrafts from plastic garbage using sewing machines.

"We provide 10 machines to the participants who are divided into 10 teams," said Josef.

Winarsih and six other housewives from Ciracas district in East Jakarta were enthusiastic because the machines would help them make the handicrafts more quickly.

"I can only make one of the handicrafts a day manually. Hopefully we can produce more with this machine."

Winarsih and her friends did not worry about selling the crafts because Unilever promised to market them at home and abroad.

"They promise to help us promote our products in supermarkets," she said.

The workshop is part of the company's program called Jakarta Green and Clean that started two years ago after the success of a similar campaign in Surabaya, East Java, in 2001.

In Jakarta, the program involves around 1,000 neighborhoods, according to Josef.

Previously the company cooperated with neighborhood units to teach them how to separate dry and wet garbage and recycle wet garbage into compost.(ewd)