Although many festivalgoers may feel reassured, believing that the mounted waste produced from their fun will become a source of income for trash pickers, what most of them do not know is that trash pickers do not pick up everything.

A lot of garbage gets left behind.

The recent JakJazz festival -- held in Senayan, Central Jakarta, from Nov. 28 to 30 -- attempted to manage waste so as not to leave it all up to pemulung (trash pickers).

ZERO WASTE JAZZ: Visitors of the recent JakJazz festival talk about a green campaign launched at the annual jazz festival. The Zero Waste campaign aimed at encouraging residents to divide their domestic waste in to four categories to be appropriately disposed of. (JP/Arief Suhardiman)

While the city administration has not regulated that festivals leave no waste behind, the annual JakJazz festival this year launched its Zero Waste campaign.

With support from Greeners magazine, the Bioscience and Biotechnology Development Foundation (YPBB), and the State Ministry for the Environment, the festival's management has started their zero waste effort.

About 32 volunteers organized by Greeners magazine and the YPBB were deployed at 10 waste points at the event to inform visitors how to minimize their waste at the public event and to help them separate their garbage into four separate bins.

Organic waste was separated into paper waste and compostable waste, while nonorganic waste was separated into recycling and nonrecyclable waste bins.

"Every event has waste. After any public event, we see piles of garbage everywhere," Syaiful Rochman, the coordinator of the waste booths at the JakJazz festival, told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

Instead of perpetuating a throw-away system, he said, the campaign aimed to educate people about recycling, composting and reusing waste.

The purpose of separating the waste, Syaiful said, was to evaluate the composition of waste produced at the event in order to recommend what type of materials should be reduced at the next event.

"The core of the campaign is to reduce the waste that is most dangerous to the environment such as styrofoam, which is usually used a lot for food packaging. This is our first target," Syaiful said.

"It would be very good if every event organizer could arrange for the replacement of styrofoam with cardboard during the planning stage of their event," Syaiful said.

The JakJazz volunteers were in charge of educating the jazz lovers on how to identify different kinds of garbage that are destructive to the environment.

The volunteers asked festivalgoers to dispose of their garbage into the four different bins. Those who were able to separate the waste correctly were awarded a badge.

"This is a good development because the event organizers are starting to care about the environment," JakJazz volunteers coordinator Dedi Supriyatna told the Post.

He said the four categories of garbage collected during the event would be labeled and processed in different ways.

The compostable waste will be sent to 10 Takakura compost starters provided by the environment ministry. Once the waste has broken down, it will be used as fertilizer for public tree-planting activities.

Paper is also compostable, but is separated from the rest of the compostable waste because it can still be recycled, Supriyatna said.

Plastic garbage will be handed over to trash pickers working around the venue.

"We usually consult with the management of the venue to take the garbage directly to pemulung scattered around the venue, so we do not harm their livelihoods," Syaiful said.

Greeners magazine and the YPBB said they still had a problem disposing of unrecyclable waste, such as styrofoam, batteries and compact disks.

"We collect them, but we don't know what to do with this kind of garbage. It is out of our hands," Syaiful said.

"In some developed countries, manufacturers are responsible for the entire life cycle of their products and packaging."

Mailing list community Green Lifestyle opened a drop-off point for used batteries and CDs at the festival in the section manned by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Indonesia.

"People coming to the event can bring along their used batteries and CDs to be collected by Waste Management Indonesia, which processes the hazardous waste, Green Lifestyle cofounder Armely Meiviana to the Post.

"We also familiarize the visitors with our plan to set up drop-off points for electronic waste throughout the city."

Dedi Supriyatna said that although JakJazz management expressed an interest in adopting a zero waste policy, they still needed to be better prepared for the next event in order to meet the requirement.

"This isn't a zero waste event, it's just a campaign for zero waste," he said.

"The key to a zero waste event is planning. The management should sit together with all participants before the event takes place to cross out the use of materials that are harmful to the environment. We hope next event will be able to do that."

The country's first attempt at a zero waste event was held by the Bandung Diocese on Aug. 11, 2007, during the celebration of its 75th anniversary at St. Petrus Cathedral in Bandung, West Java.

The YPBB helped the diocese with the preparation for the event.

"After that, Greeners magazine and the State Ministry for the Environment invited us to promote and help organize another event," Dedi said.

"The last Java Jazz festival was another attempt at zero waste event."

He said so far events attempting to hold a zero waste event could reduce, reuse and recycle up to 70 percent of the waste produced.

"We hope such a public event (like JakJazz) will also educate people on good habits like recycling the waste they produced."

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