Group helps turn trash into tulips

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Homemakers and at-home mums in Pademangan, North Jakarta, gathered together Sunday to learn how to turn their trash into all sorts of gardening delights.

Pademangan sub district is a crowded home to mostly families living below the poverty line. They predominately live in nine-meter-square rooms encompassing bedroom, dining room and living room areas.

It is still common practice in Pademangan to throw trash on railroad tracks or sewers -- only a few families have started to dispose of household rubbish at public dumpsites.

Rotary Clean and Green's educational campaign around waste management, held by Rotary club Sunter Centennial, brought to some 60 Pademnagan neighborhood proven methods of turning their trash into usable garden products.

"Just by separating your trash, your wet organic trash from your dry inorganic trash, and processing it with the tools we are going to give you, you can make money," Rotary's Djatnika told the audience.

Composting is the technique Rotary introduced -- a proven process that sees organic waste put into aerated pots or buckets already filled with up to three centimeters of soil.

A solution of microorganism can be poured into the mix afterwards, and one to two months later the mix will become compost which can be used as a fertilizer, or sold.

"Ladies, you can directly sell the compost to plant dealers, or use it yourself to help grow flowers or vegetables, which you can even sell for more," Betty Muliadinata, another Rotary speaker, said.

She said however the amount of compost from household trash would bring in "just a little bit of extra money".

"The most important thing however is you keep your neighborhood healthy and beautiful because you will have pots of flowers instead of buckets of trash," Betty said.

According to Pademangan community figure Anggiata, the program would see scavengers in the area not have to sift through the trash in the area for resale.

"Since inorganic wastes are not used for compost, the families can just round the inorganic ones in a bag and pass it to the scavengers," Anggiata said.

"They would be very happy because the trash would have already been sorted through," he said.

Anggiata said the club and the families will meet again in two to four weeks so Rotary could give out composting tools.

Rotary Club president Raju S. Dansingani said the event was part of a pilot project to create a "compost-producing society".

"After Pademangan, we plan to keep on introducing the system to more neighborhoods in Jakarta -- and ultimately Bantar Gebang because there are so many wastes there," Raju said.

Bantar Gebang is Jakarta's 104-hectare landfill site where the city disposes of more than 6,000 tons of waste a day.

"With the amount of trash Jakarta produces, I see this program as profitable solution to the city's waste management problems, which is a great incentive for people to start sorting their trash," he said. (anw)