Depok leads fight against waste in Indonesia

Landfills may not only contaminate soil, but also groundwater. Image source: Shutterstock (#543048433).

Local communities in Depok, Indonesia, have successfully diverted hundreds of tons of waste from going to landfills and leaking into the oceans through a system called Partai Ember (Bucket Party), which consists of regulations to encourage and enforce people to separate household waste into material streams of organic (i.e. food scraps), inorganic (i.e. recyclables) and residue.

Said communities have reached segregation rates of 100 percent, diverting almost 72 percent of all their household waste.

“The management has an integrated infrastructure and processing system, starting with sorting at the source: organic waste is required to be placed in the bucket, inorganic waste is sent to waste banks or for recycling processing, and residue to landfill. If there is no sorting, then the waste will not be transported and any illegal dumping will be prosecuted,” managing director of Waste4Change M. B. Junerosano said.

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