T

he hard work of Jakarta’s “orange army,” who plunge into filthy rivers every day to collect garbage, and citizen initiatives to sort and recycle waste have gained recognition, as the city snatched two environmental awards this year.

The Environment and Forestry Ministry presented the Adipura environmental award to the administrations of Central Jakarta and South Jakarta for their ability to keep the municipalities clean. Last year, Central Jakarta was the only municipality in the capital to receive the award.

Agustinus, a member of Central Jakarta’s sanitation workforce, also known as the orange army for the color of their uniforms, said he was happy about the municipality’s consecutive success.

“I feel that our hard work has paid off,” Agustinus said.

In addition to dispatching orange troops to clean Central Jakarta, the administration also encourages its citizens to reuse, reduce and recycle garbage. The administration has established hundreds of waste banks across the municipality.

A waste bank is a collection point for recyclable trash, where residents can drop their pre-sorted household waste in exchange for cash.

To celebrate the achievement, Central Jakarta administration officials together with orange troops from the municipality paraded from the Central Jakarta Mayor’s office to City Hall, both in Gambir in Central Jakarta, on Thursday morning, in dozens of cars decorated with flowers.

They brought the Adipura award they had received from the ministry on Wednesday evening to the hall to be handed over to the city administration.

Central Jakarta Mayor Mangara Pardede said he had instructed all government offices and schools to have their own waste bank. “The children are even told to bring inorganic waste to their schools’ waste banks, so they can earn a lot of money from the waste,” Mangara said.

The Central Jakarta administration’s economic and development assistant, Bakwan Ferizan Ginting, said previously that the almost 400 waste banks in the area had contributed to a reduction in garbage from 4,500 cubic meters a day to 1,600 cubic meters at the trash disposal site (TPA).

Separately, South Jakarta Mayor Tri Kurniadi said the hundreds of waste banks in the municipality had also contributed to South Jakarta receiving the Adipura award. “We have a waste bank center in Lenteng Atas [for recyclable items from all of the waste banks in South Jakarta],” Tri said.

Also this year, Jakarta Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat received the prestigious Nirwasita Tantra award, which is only bestowed on three regional leaders across the country every year. The 2017 Nirwasita Tantra award also went to the regional heads of East Java and West Sumatera, in recognition of their efforts to improve the environment in their respective provinces.

Djarot may have to share the honor with former governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, as they both planned and implemented the environmental programs throughout the city’s five municipalities and one regency.

Jakarta Environment Agency head Isnawa Adji said the Jakarta governor had made the city more livable by establishing Child-Friendly Integrated Public Spaces (RPTRA), organizing riverbanks as well as developing transportation infrastructure.

“Those efforts are the reasons for the Jakarta leaders to receive the Nirwasita Tantra award,” Isnawa said. He acknowledged that the city’s traffic congestion had worsened lately, but said that that was caused by transportation infrastructure development projects for better traffic conditions in the future.

As of today, the Jakarta administration has established 186 RPTRAs across the capital’s five municipalities and one regency. It plans to add 106 more this year.

The city administration, under the leadership of Ahok and Djarot, is also known for its river-restoration projects, which include relocating people living on river banks to subsidized apartments.