A day before Christmas Eve, Santo Stefanus Catholic Church in Cilandak, South Jakarta, was ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, with an eco-friendly Christmas tree and crèche made of bamboo wood and leaves gracefully installed in its main hall.

Lamps on the ceiling cast a calming orange glow, which blended perfectly with the altar'€™s cheerful decorations made of vegetables such as lettuce and red spinach.

'€œWe want to make good decorations by also taking environmental issues into account,'€ said Ignatius Susiadi Wibowo, Stefanus'€™ decoration team coordinator. '€œTherefore, for the decorations, we are using materials that can be used for other things after the Christmas celebration.'€

Adi, as Ignatius is more commonly known, went on to say that his team chose to take a different approach to other churches, where the Christmas crèche and tree are made from used materials, like plastic bottles and detergent packaging.

According to him, this only increases the demand for used materials, causing the amount of garbage to multiply.

Adi and his wife Wilma Chrysanti, who also took part in initiating the organic altar decorations, are co-founders of LabTanya, an architectural consultancy firm that has been initiating an experimental program called Kota Tanpa Sampah (City Without Trash) in the capital recently.

In the program, LabTanya has encouraged dozens of households in Bintaro, South Tangerang, to reduce their daily waste by monitoring their way of life and shopping habits.

Adi added that after carrying out the Kota Tanpa Sampah program, he and Wilma then proposed the idea of using bamboo products and vegetables for the Christmas decoration materials.

According to Adi, other committee members of the church had immediately agreed with the idea.

He explained that church members had been enthusiastic to learn to make the bamboo bowls from a seller Adi found near Pondok Indah Mall in South Jakarta after they heard his idea about '€œexperiencing the making to value the process'€.

As a result, Adi added, around 85 of the 1,500 bamboo bowls used for the Christmas crèche and tree were made by church members, with the remaining bamboo bowls bought from traditional markets in South Jakarta.

Christmas committee chair Ruddy Nararyo said that the committee appreciated Adi'€™s and Wilma'€™s proposal as it corresponded with Pope Francis'€™ June encyclical to take action on current environmental issues.

Pope Francis encouraged Catholics and all others to take action to prevent '€œextraordinary'€ climate change from destroying the planet.

Ruddy explained that by following the less-garbage concept, the committee members also began to be aware of ways to control their daily waste.

He added that his team did not encounter any significant challenges in sourcing the bamboo or vegetables for the decorations.

Similarly, Christoverson Lukas Rahayaan, a representative of the Catholic Youth Association (OMK), which was also a part of the decorations committee, said that he found no difficulties in installing the decorations. He said that he and other OMK members even enjoyed the novel process of making the bamboo bowls.

Seeing Stefanus'€™ different look prior to Christmas, priest Paulus Setiadi Slamet Santoso SCJ hailed the concept, calling it an idea that would help church members understand the concept of environmental conservation.

'€œThis is a way for us to understand about taking care of our environment. We should not just take it for granted,'€ Paulus said. (agn)

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