Festival encourages residents to start living green

The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Mon, 04/21/2008 10:36 AM | City

The first thing on show in the exhibition area of Jakarta's Green Festival on Saturday was a silver-colored model of Earth, with a giant thermometer protruding from it.

The message was clear: Earth is heating up and we'd better do something about it.

For many visitors, the three-day festival, held in the eastern parking lot of Senayan Sports Complex, South Jakarta, from Friday to Sunday, taught them that helping the planet begins in daily life and can be done without much effort.

"I didn't know most of the clean water we use every day is wasted in the bathroom. Now I know the less time we spend taking our baths, the more water we save," said Fajar Aryoga, 26, who came to the festival Saturday.

The aim of the festival was to educate people about how global warming threatens everyone and what can be done to reduce it.

Information on bathroom water usage was one of dozens of small displays of messages and tips placed throughout the exhibition zone at the festival.

The exhibition area was arranged to represent parts of a house. Visitors roamed the "house" starting from the "front yard" through to the "kitchen".

Each room was designed to create a typical representation of what might be found in real houses, with information displays on how to use energy more efficiently.

Next to a cellular phone in the exhibition's "study", for example, was a message telling visitors 95 percent of the electricity used to charge the battery is wasted and advised people to unplug the charger after the phone is fully charged.

Visitors to the "garage" were told by driving less aggressively and shifting to higher gears sooner and to lower gears a bit later they could reduce fuel consumption by between 10 and 18 percent.

Another visitor, Rayani, said the exhibition encouraged many visitors, including her, to start doing something about global warming.

"I learned it can start from something as simple as buying large shampoo and soap bottles and then using refills to reduce plastic waste, or not using drinking straws because you only use them for mere seconds," said the 19-year-old agronomy student.

The festival was jointly organized by state oil and gas company Pertamina, consumer goods producer Unilever and media groups Kompas newspaper, Metro TV and FeMale radio.

The event also included a bazaar, a children's zone and a stage for musical performances and talk shows.

Rayani said she hoped more and more Jakartans would become aware about global warming and the environment.

"I hope we can start to adapt to the (global warming) problem by changing our daily habits, before it's too late," she said. (dre)

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