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Soul: Zero waste villages - “A project to help families turn food and kitchen waste into compost”
It has long been common practice for families to dump their organic waste in the backyard for pigs or cows to feed on, instead of collecting the waste to create compost
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It has long been common practice for families to dump their organic waste in the backyard for pigs or cows to feed on, instead of collecting the waste to create compost. This habit attracts houseflies, rats, cockroaches and many insects.
Many households even dispose of organic waste with their general rubbish, which is then taken to the land fill. Some simply burn all their waste.
Estimates claim that 65 percent of waste is organic, 7 percent recyclable (plastic & glass) and the remaining 8 percent is unusable or toxic. Current practices are very unhealthy and affect surrounding living conditions.
To create a healthier environment, Rotary Club in Bali has taken the initiative to educate local people on how to handle organic food waste using fermentation in an anaerobic system (without oxygen) to turn it into compost.
The organization has also formed the community-based Rotary Community Corps (RCC), under Rotary guidance, to further provide assistance on composting at the community level.
The target is to select small villages in agricultural regions with a population of not more than 100 families, most of whom are farmers or laborers.
Bungkulan village in Singaraja, in the northern regency of Buleleng, has been selected as the pilot project.
Here, each household has been trained to collect their own organic food and kitchen waste at home and keep it in a plastic container. When the container is full, it is sent to the RCC processing center for the final stage of fermentation in the ground.
At the processing site, the contents of the boxes, which have been fermenting over the past two weeks, are poured into the trench, mixed with soil then the whole trench is covered with soil.
It takes a further two weeks for this buried waste to turn into compost, which the local people can then use on their crops instead of buying expensive chemical-based fertilizers.
This system improves the surrounding area, removes odors, flies and rats and helps to create zero waste by returning all kitchen and food waste to nature.
With the successful commissioning of this project, Rotary aims to expand this system into other villages.
