UNS — Ranked 2nd after China as the largest contributor of waste, Indonesia needs to increase people awareness and change people’s behavior in managing waste, supporting this effort, PT. Pegadaian (Persero) and Faculty of Agriculture (FP) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta collaborate in creating UNS Waste Bank located in Rumah Kompos (Compost House) FP UNS. Under the ‘Memilah Sampah, Menabung Emas’ (Sorting Garbage Saving Gold) tagline, this movement offers a solution for UNS and the surrounding community to manage their garbage and promote a program to exchange waste with gold saving.
Professor Sudadi, the Vice-Dean Human Resources, Finance, and Logistics Affairs FP UNS, explained the need to manage waste and change behavior in the Waste Management & Competition Socialization Webinar. In the webinar held through the Zoom Cloud Meeting Monday (5/7/2021), he also hoped that the wise behavior in managing waste could become a culture and passed down to the next generation. He added that Indonesian people could take examples from Japan that have to apply wise waste management and contributes to creating a better life in the future.
Yudhi Tri Apriyanto supported Prof. Sudadi and said that Indonesian have a terrible habit of littering and poor waste management. The Assistant Manager II of Institutional Relation PT Pegadaian (Persero) for Surakarta shared three objectives of the collaboration: improving environmental care for financial inclusion (cleaning environment), assisting administrative management and training for the waste bank (cleaning administration), and growing people awareness to improve infrastructure or public facilities.
Yudhi Tri Apriyanto also stated that PT. Pegadaian (Persero) manages 70 waste banks. UNS is the only Public University and one of the waste banks in Solo besides Kitiran Emas Purwosari. “Another university in the program is Universitas Budi Luhur in Bekasi, Jakarta,” he revealed.
Why Sorting Garbage Saving Gold?
Yudhi Tri Apriyanto also explained the Gadai Clean and Gold program background or exchanging sorted garbage with gold in the webinar. The main reasons are gold is an investment that could withstand inflation, accessible from 0.01 to 24 carats, easy to disbursed, and easy to start with an online opening account starting from IDR 50,000. “Safe, listed, and monitored by OJK,” he added.
UNS and PT. Pegadaian (Persero) collaboration is also implemented through the ‘Sorting Garbage Saving Gold’ competition on July 2021 to improve people’s awareness of the program and commemorate Indonesia’s Independence on 17 August. Two categories in this competition are the highest waste volume and the highest gold saving. The waste that could participate in this competition is plastic IDR 3,000/Kg, paper IDR 2,500/Kg, card box IDR 2,000/Kg, and metal IDR 4,000/Kg. The prizes are Top Up gold saving IDR 2 million for 1st place, IDR 1 million for 2nd place, and IDR 500k for 3rd place. The competition started on 3 July to 24 July 2021. Humas UNS
Reporter: Alinda Hardiantoro
Editor: Dwi Hastuti