Landfills Greatly Diminishing due to Waste Banks

Inti Indosawit Subur is a member of the Asian Agri group of companies. It is a privately owned palm oil company with its main focus on developing its oil palm plantations and processing facilities. It is also one of the few privately owned companies in Indonesia to successfully have carried out the plasma scheme.

Together with the Tanoto Foundation, founded by Mr Sukanto Tanoto, Inti Indosawit Subur has initiated, as well as implemented, a waste management programme for the homes of its company’s employees. The company took the initiative to execute the plan in their employee housing in a simple but effective way.

Training was held for the Inti Indosawit Subur employees residing in Tungkal Ulu, Jambi, after which they were asked to put what they had learned into practise, which is to separate organic from inorganic household waste in their homes.

The programme and training have produced very positive results, with the amounts of garbage produced by the village having reduced dramatically since it was initiated. The success of the programme has led to plans of expanding it to throughout other villages, continuing to build waste banks near the homes of employees in collaboration with the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme of Asian Agri.

The waste bank garbage sites accept materials such as plastic, Styrofoam, cardboard, paper, tin and other recyclable items which have some form of economic value. The waste is collected twice monthly, and sold to recycling plants that have partnered with the Waste Bank Business Group (WBBG) Perum. The total turnover from all the existing waste banks in the WBBG initiative is about US$ 2 million per month, which is a huge amount for items which would otherwise have been left to lay in a landfill.

Senior Manager of Inti Indosawit Subur , Azwan Sutondo, explains that there could be an alternative sorting and micro-economic development for all the employees in the company once the waste banks are in their villages.