TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Makassar City Administration has cooperated with 87 trash banks in the city in launching a program which allows people to exchange their garbage for rice. The types of trashes that can be exchanged for are copper, cartons/cardboard, and plastic bottles.
“We are trying to run the program with the help of the Trash Bank program that has been running for two years,” said Burhanudin, the Assitant III for Financial and Asset of Makassar City Administration during the launching on Wednesday.
The trash banks have previously run a program of exchanging organic trashes into money. Burhanudin now hoped that the people could exchange their non-organic trashes into rice or money. People who exchange the trashes will receive type of rice according to the market price.
“We see that people’s interaction with the trash banks is already good,” Burhanudin added.
According to local neighborhood representative (RW) 4 of Ballaparang, Petta Gilling, the mechanism of exchanging trash with rice is similar to that with money.
The amount of money received by the trash bank customers are depending on the type of the trash. For example, one kilogram of copper coil from the electronic transformer device is valued at Rp40,000. Carboard is worth for Rp600 per kilogram, plastic bottles for Rp1,000 to 1,200 per kilogram, and aluminum can for Rp7,000 per kilogram.
RASDIYANAH
