PT Kereta Commuter Indonesia (KCI), the operator of Jakarta’s Commuter Line rail service, introduced its Go Green program to the public on Tuesday at Sudirman Station in Menteng, Central Jakarta.

Planned for implementation starting in 2020, the program applies environmentally friendly concepts for conserving power and water, as well as managing waste, at each of the 80 Commuter Line stations in Greater Jakarta.

“Today, along with PT KCI, we are proud to launch environmentally friendly stations. Three stations are being launched today, [...] Sudirman, Klender and Jurangmangu,” said Noer Adi Wardojo, who heads the environment and forestry standards center at the Environment and Forestry Ministry.

The three stations were chosen to pilot the Go Green program, because they were determined to have the capacity to adopt the initiative after evaluating all 80 stations, said KCI president director Wiwik Widayanti.

She added that the stations also “represent each line” of the rail service, with Jurangmangu Station representing the Rangkas Line, Klender Station the Bekasi Line and Sudirman representing the Central Line.

The “green station” concept was adopted from the ministry’s Public Facilities Service Standards, which defines the concept as being efficient in the use of energy, water and materials, as well as having a waste management system in place.

Noer said that KCI had fulfilled this standard, while Wiwik added that Sudirman Station was accordingly “energy efficient”.

“So here we have a charging booth that is powered by solar cells. There is also an [automatic] timer to turn on and off the lighting at the station,” said Wiwik.

KCI has also installed water-efficient taps in the toilets to reduce water usage, biopores to conserve water and vertical gardens to increase air circulation at the three pilot stations. It had also implemented a recycling system in collaboration with a nearby waste bank for the plastic bottles collected at the stations. Sudirman Station, for example, collects up to 110 kilograms of plastic bottles every week.

Hera Febrianty, a 19-year-old student who travels to Sudirman Station on her daily commute, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that she had learned about the new eco-charging facility around two weeks ago.

She had not tried out the new booth yet, but said she thought it was positioned strategically, near the toilets and the mushola (prayer room).

“Usually in the evening or during rush hour, there are a lot of people using it [the eco-charging booth],” Hera told the Post.

Aulia Setianegara, on the other hand, had only noticed the booth during the introductory event, and agreed that it should be implemented at every station. But he said that the other initiatives were less visible.

“[The vertical garden] is not that apparent, maybe because there are still very few of them installed,” said the 19-year-old.

Aulia, who had stopped using plastic bags when shopping at convenience stores, added that he was unaware of the rail operator’s efforts to curb plastic waste at its stations.

While a public awareness campaign on going green may be lacking, the public adoption of greener habits is the bigger picture of the KCI’s and the Environment and Forestry Ministry’s joint mission — starting with Commuter Line passengers.

“There are around 1.1 million daily passengers of the Commuter Line,” said Wiwik. “If all of them can be taught to care more about the environment, [that awareness] will spread to others.” she said when asked about her hopes for the Go Green program.

“We [want] to save the Earth for many generations to come,” said Wiwik, referring to the broader green movement in Indonesia’s public transportation sector.

The KCI initiative is part of a growing environmental shift among mass transit companies in the country’s major cities.

Surabaya, for instance, adopted the pay-with-plastic scheme for its Suroboyo Bus service in 2018 and had collected 39 tons of plastic bottles by January this year. The bottles were then auctioned in June by the Finance Ministry’s state assets directorate general for a hammer price of Rp 150 million (US$10,715), reported kompas.com.

PT Transportasi Jakarta also intends to make its Transjakarta buses more environmentally friendly, with plans to start switching to electric buses in 2021 and to have a fully electric fleet by 2030. (ydp)

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