Domestic Food Leftover Dominate Indonesia's Total Waste

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Environment and Forestry Ministry reminded households to conduct their own waste separation following the fact that 62 percent of Indonesia’s waste comes from domestic trash. The ministry’s director of waste contamination and dangerous wastes emergency response, Haruki Agustina, explained this in an event on Wednesday, March 4.

“Many of the wastes come from households. This forces us to come up with a proper household management system,” she said. 

Based on the 2018 trash heap data, households contribute to 62 percent to the waste and followed by traditional market waste with 13 percent, shopping centers (7 percent), office buildings (5 percent), regional waste (4 percent), public facility (3 percent), while the remaining 6 percent constitute various waste sources.

Referring to the same year, the data reveals that the top five waste contributors come from food leftovers (44 percent), plastic (15 percent), paper (13 percent), cloth or textile (3 percent), metal (2 percent), rubber and paper (2 percent), and the remaining 8 percent comes from various sources. 

The University of Indonesia’s environmental sciences lecturer said that women play a major role in handling waste management. “Why women? Because women are managers within someone’s household, they have the power, women should be influencers at home,” said Haruki Agustina.

MOH KHORY ALFARIZI