Java’s Sukunan Village Recycling Program

Andy Hill

For the better part of this year I have had the delight of living on the island of Lombok, which sits to the east of Bali in the vast archipelago of Indonesia. During most of this time I lived in a small village in the island’s south whose psychedelically gorgeous beaches are still yet to be developed, where running water doesn’t exist, and which has had electricity only for three years. I saw many beautiful and charming things there.

I was also able to see the growing cost that plastic is taking on this carbon spaceship of ours, even in such a sparsely-populated area as I had taken my sojourn. Because of this growing awareness of the scourge of plastic waste (in a place where ‘the garbage man’ will not come to exist for years), I recently traveled to Java in order to research what, if anything, people there were doing about their waste.

While in Yogyakarta, I learned of a village on the perimeter of the city called Sukunan which has a citizen-based recycling program, and soon I was on my motorbike to go and see what they were doing. 

Back in 2003, acting on inspiration from two Australian friends, a young man from Sukunan named Iswanto began separating his rubbish into plastic, paper, and glass/metal, as well as collecting organic and food waste into a compost bin. 

Soon there were donated several sets of old oil drums which were set around the village for residents to separate their household waste into. In a central area, collecting ‘houses’ were constructed for these drums to be emptied into, the contents of which would then be picked up and taken to recycling facilities in nearby Surakarta. 

Now, people come from all over the world to learn about this pioneering, efficacious, and simple means of eliminating ‘waste’ which would otherwise end up in drainage ditches, topsoil, and rivers.

When I arrived, a group of 30 or so people from Sumatra was there for a presentation set up in front of the collection houses. A representative of the program was explaining to them how organic waste can be turned into compost which can then be sold for a profit. 

Plastic waste containing aluminum foil, which cannot be recycled, is cleaned and turned into bags, wallets, and other accessories by Sukunan’s villagers and are then sold at a profit by many local entrepreneurs. 

I was led around and shown the various aspects of the program by a kind, older woman from the village who acted as an ambassador. I was impressed to see many sets of three collecting drums at every small crossroads in the village. The drums had been brightly and impressively painted and decorated by local youths.     

It was inspiring and uplifting to see people taking a village-based approach to this massive problem, for that is the level from which the solution must come. 

I purchased a little hand-sewn wallet made from old plastic and aluminum coffee wrappers, thanked the woman for showing me around, and was eventually on my way back to the city, energized and informed about how this daunting task may be transmuted and perhaps overcome.