Country: Indonesia
School: Sekolah Alam Palembang - Junior High School
Contact: nurbaitiekasari.nz@gmail.com
Our hometown Palembang produce 900 tons of garbage every day. About 60% of them are organic waste. These include food leftovers, rotten fruits and vegetables from traditional markets and households. With limited waste managing knowledge, many people would simply throw away all the garbage without any sorting, even less recycling and other waste processing. This has led to overcapacity of wasteland in Palembang. Aside from limited environmental education, the government also spend less investment on waste processing facilities, because it deemed too costly to build.
There is, however, a much cheaper alternative to process organic waste. This is what we call a Biopore (Biopori in Indonesian), a method devised by Indonesian engineer Kamir R. Brata. To make a Biopore, dig a hole for about 1 meter deep. Then we place a cylindrical holder, could be made from an unused bucket (the bottom part discharged) or a pipe. This acts as barrier from soil erosion that can bury the hole. Before, drill some holes around the holder to let the water through. Fill the Biopore with organic waste. Finally, put a filter at the top of the hole. The resulting compost could be harvested after some period.
(Structure of the composting chamber - the cement is replaced with PVC pipe or unused bucket)
(Our team, from left to right: Afaf, Tya, Afiffah)
We have implemented this system in many households in Palembang. It has been implemented in our school as well to provide drainage and composting system. Through this simple project, we hope that we can raise public awareness of waste wanaging.