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Don’t waste, donate: Groups offer alternatives to sort waste woes
Throw away or give away?: A man sorts out donated goods at the headquarters of charity organization Donasi Barang in Bekasi, West Java
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hrow away or give away?: A man sorts out donated goods at the headquarters of charity organization Donasi Barang in Bekasi, West Java. (JP/P.J.Leo)
Every house has that special corner where items that are no longer needed are stacked up and ignored for a long time. Throwing them away might not be the most environmentally considerate option to take, but there is another option: donate them.
It was 8:30 a.m. on a Thursday, and Likin and Roni were on their way to pick up used items from a donor in Bekasi, West Java.
“The furthest place we’ve visited [to pick up donations] is Tangerang. It took us about 1.5 hours to get there. Most of the donors are in Serpong, [South Tangerang],” Likin said.
They work for Donasi Barang, an organization managed by the Cagar Foundation and based in Bekasi.
Donasi Barang seeks to prolong the lives of used items, to prevent them from being thrown away and dumped in a landfill. The initiative works with a number of partners, both organizations and individuals, to whom it sells or donates the items after repairing them.
The organization accepts all sorts of nonorganic waste, including fabric, paper, plastics, furniture, electronic appliances and automotive parts.
Six days a week, Likin, accompanied by his colleague Roni, drives his truck to various places throughout Greater Jakarta to pick up donations and then bring them to a warehouse.
In the warehouse, two workers sort the donations based on their categories.
That afternoon, Iwan, a waste sorter, was busy sorting a box of plastic toys. Lying in front of the box were other boxes filled with used books and magazines.
The room he worked in might seem messy, but Iwan understood the organizational system and none of the objects inside the room missed his eye.
While Iwan was responsible for sorting miscellaneous items, Sunarya dealt only with clothes. He sorted the clothes into three groups: the good ones to be sold at thrift stores, others to be donated to the less fortunate and the remainder to be reused for other purposes.
Donated books that still have economic value are sold at secondhand bookshops.
The income from selling the books and clothing is used to cover the organization’s operational costs. Most of the earnings, however, are donated to underprivileged families in remote areas and support the Cagar Foundation’s school for autistic children from low-income families.
Broken furniture and electronic appliances are repaired and then sold or donated to organizations that need them. Nonreusable plastics and paper, meanwhile, are sold to garbage collectors and then sent to factories to be recycled. Damaged clothes are donated to automotive workshops to be used as rags to wipe away dust and oil.
Hambali, the head of the warehouse, said the next challenge after the donated items were sorted was to manage their flow to ensure they did not take up space in the warehouse for too long.
“Each item can only stay at the warehouse for two or three days — or one week tops — after its arrival. It requires a lot of coordination and thinking because we pick up new objects almost every day. Managing the warehouse’s flow is not an easy task,” he said.
Donasi Barang was initiated in 2011 and officially launched in 2017.
The founder, Ade Rahmat, said he got the idea when he visited an acquaintance’s house that was crammed with piles of books and unused items.
“In 2017, we started the Donasi Barang program with the tagline Sisa-sisa tak selalu sia-sia [used items should not go to waste]. We take items that are no longer used or needed by the owners and channel them to those who need them,” Ade said.
“If no one does it, it will only worsen the country’s waste problem. It will become garbage that probably ends up polluting the ocean or being dumped in landfills,” he added.
From its activities, Donasi Barang can earn between Rp 30 million (US$2,193.86) and Rp 40 million in a month. Ade said the organization was not a business because they generated money from waste and used it for social purposes.
Similar movements have started to grow in Greater Jakarta amid the persistent waste issues that have marred the environment. The capital city alone produces nearly 8,000 tons of waste a day.
Beberes Indonesia in Pamulang, South Tangerang, Banten, offers a similar service. It is open to receiving and picking up all sorts of nonorganic garbage.
Beberes Indonesia partners with recyclers and involves residents living near its office to help sort the waste.
Some other organizations accept only certain types of waste. Lemaribukubuku, for example, only accepts secondhand books. For secondhand clothes, there are organizations like Salur.id, Sadari Sedari and Clothes For Charity.
For electronic waste, the Jakarta Environment Agency has placed 17 drop boxes across the capital, such as at City Hall, mayoral offices, some Transjakarta bus shelters and commuter line stations for residents to recycle their unused gadgets.
