The effort to clean up Jakarta is getting a boost as more people, mostly housewives, are working plastic garbage into functional and ornamental products and selling them to earn money.

Ninik Nuryanto, 51, has since 2008 organized more than 80 fellow women residents of community unit (RW) 03 of Rawajati subdistrict in Pancoran, South Jakarta, to make bags and card organizers out of used beverage-powder sachets, artificial flowers and vases out of mineral water bottles and boxes out of used pieces of paper.

'€œNot only do we reduce plastic litter but we also create value by transforming the garbage into craft products,'€ she said.

Ninik said used water bottles sold for Rp 3,000 (25 US cents) per kilogram, but that she could sell them for between Rp 35,000 and Rp 75,000 per kg if she made artificial flowers and vases out of them.

She said that she and her group procured garbage from the RW'€™s trash bank, which they had established themselves for collecting organic and non-organic waste.

Residents of RW 03, according to Ninik, collected more than 2.5 tons of non-organic waste per month, of which 50 kg was made into recycled products with the rest sold to third parties.

'€œWe promote our products by word-of-mouth,'€ she said, adding that they sold the products out of the RW 03 office, which was seeing more customers thanks to reports on TV stations and online media about her team'€™s activities.

 Ninik said that her group also sometimes promoted the products at exhibitions organized by government agencies.

She added that her group'€™s business had gotten support from several parties, such as the Jakarta Sanitation Agency and private companies through their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.

'€œWe, for example, have received machines from the agency to facilitate our work,'€ she said. '€œThe agency and the companies also provide a booth for us every time they organize exhibitions.'€

Ninik'€™s team is just one of more than 600 similar groups in Jakarta, according to Jakarta Sanitation Agency head Unu Nurdin.

The women residents of Semper sub-district in North Jakarta, have been turning trash into craft products since 2011.

Endang Susanti, 48, who lives in the housing complex for staff members of the Jakarta Sanitation Agency, said that she and six other housewives recycled plastic waste to make their neighborhood cleaner.

'€œMy neighborhood used to be filthy as many people littered even though most of them work at the sanitation agency,'€ said Endang.

She said that her group, which could collect 15 percent of the nearly two tons of non-organic trash in the neighborhood, made sandals, bags and other craft products from beverage powder sachets and liquid soap bottles.

The group, she said, could sell its products at prices ranging from Rp 5,000 to Rp 200,000 per piece through exhibitions organized by government agencies.

'€œWe have been cooperating with the Environment Ministry, the Public Works Ministry and the Jakarta Sanitation Agency, so that we can display our products at their exhibitions,'€ she said, adding that through such exhibitions, her group had recently sold key chains and sandals to a buyer from Malaysia.

Unu said that besides providing exhibition booths for waste-based handicraft producers, his agency also promoted the sale of their products by encouraging companies to become regular buyers.

He said his agency, for instance, had won an agreement with auto-maker PT Astra International to purchase the handicrafts. (nai)

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