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Jakarta Post

Residents asked to pick up trash on Fridays

In a bid to raise awareness of sanitation, the Jakarta administration has launched the Gerakan Pungut Sampah (Picking Up Trash Movement), calling on Jakartans to pick up garbage in their areas every Friday morning

Corry Elyda (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Wed, November 26, 2014

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Residents asked to pick up trash on Fridays

I

n a bid to raise awareness of sanitation, the Jakarta administration has launched the Gerakan Pungut Sampah (Picking Up Trash Movement), calling on Jakartans to pick up garbage in their areas every Friday morning.

Veronica Tan, the wife of Jakarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama, said during the launch ceremony at the event, entitled '€œJakarta Kinclong'€ (Shiny Jakarta) at Menteng Park in Central Jakarta over the weekend, that residents and others in Jakarta should start paying more attention to their surroundings.

'€œLet'€™s spare our time to clean our home, which is Jakarta,'€ she said. Cleaning is to be conducted for 30 minutes from 6:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. every Friday, starting on Nov. 28.

Veronica said littering in Jakarta was not only a problem of low-income people but also the rich.

She said she once saw a mother who ignored litter that fell from her car when she and her children exiting the vehicle to enter a mall, while the children'€™s nanny tagged along.

Veronica said many people still considered that cleaning neighborhoods was the task of sanitation workers.

The governor'€™s wife said the ideal situation was when residents did not have to be pushed to maintain the cleanliness of neighborhoods.

'€œEveryone is supposed to know what they need to do,'€ she said.

She said the city needed to impose harsher penalties on those who littered.

After the launch, Veronica started the movement by picking up trash around the park.

The leader of the Bersih Nyok (Let'€™s Clean) group, Amaranila Lalita Drijono, said that the city produced at least 6,000 tons of garbage each day.

'€œIt'€™s impossible for the city administration to solely handle it,'€ she said.

Amaranila said it required stakeholders ranging from residents, officials to private entities to help handle the waste.

'€œAlthough we have many communities concerned about waste management, it'€™s not enough to make the city clean,'€ she said.

She added that Jakarta needed a mindset revolution to increase the sense of belonging to the city, so that in turn, people would be more motivated to maintain the cleanliness of their city.

Jakarta Kinclong is set to be held from Saturday to Nov. 29. Besides the launch, many other activities like discussions, workshops, talk shows and exhibitions on trash bins and garbage disposal facilities (TPS) are to be held at Menteng Park.

Sanitation Agency head Saptastri Ediningtyas said the movement would be legalized by a gubernatorial instruction.

'€œThe movement is obligatory for civil servants and is a suggestion for residents,'€ she said.

Saptastri said her agency would procure and install more trash bins in public spaces to support the movement.

'€œWe will install trash bins for three kinds of garbage '€” organic, inorganic and poisonous, and dangerous substances,'€ she said, adding that the trash bins would be colored green, yellow and red respectively.

Saptastri hoped that residents would be trained to separate their garbage.

The city administration allocates Rp 400 billion (US$32.9 million) annually from its budget for waste management.

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