My School Goes Zero Plastic

During the day, the atmosphere of my school is beautiful. There wasn’t much trash lying around because there were trash bins in every class and corner of the school. However, there was something that bothered me. Not about the awareness of the school community to dispose of garbage in its place, but the amount of garbage produced in my school’s garbage bins.

The bins are getting so crowded, they don’t fit anymore so they spill out onto the floor. Unfortunately, students only rely on school cleaning workers. In fact, taking care of the school environment is our obligation as school citizens.

Trash cans are dirty and many are reluctant to touch them. If this continues, more and more waste will be generated and potentially cause various other impacts.

Single-use plastic waste is often used daily at school. Food wrappers, beverage containers, mineral water containers, Styrofoam, leftover packaging, and many more. Apparently, these items can be donated or deposited to the waste bank which is quite close to our school. However, most of the students in my school are not aware of the existence of the waste bank.

Fathia (middle)

With the existing unrest, I (Fathia) together with Kak Nasyila and Kak Ayu formed a community that we named Ecogreen. Initially, this community aimed to participate in the Green Influencer activity from the Urban Nexus program, Plan Indonesia in collaboration with BAPPEDA Depok City.

Ecogreen is engaged in the environment, especially the use of disposable plastic waste. In this Green Influencer activity organized by Yayasan Plan International Indonesia (Plan Indonesia), we received a comprehensive briefing ranging from the urgency of waste management, climate crisis issues and the role of young people, we were also introduced to Depok government policies in dealing with waste. In addition, we were taught to create impactful campaign activities by paying attention to safeguarding (child safety), gender equality and social inclusion.

From these briefings, we started to build cooperation with the Class Representative Council of the Intra-School Student Organization (MPK-OSIS), the extracurricular Youth Scientific Group (KIR), the vice principal, and the waste bank near our school.

What are the series of programs that have been implemented? Here is a series of ecogreen activities:

1. Education & Campaign Action

Of course, before we take action, we have to increase the knowledge of the school community to raise awareness so that they can mobilize themselves and even those around them. We educated them about carbon emission, starting from what it is, the dangers, and the causes, focusing on the use of single-use plastic waste. In addition, we also explained how to reduce and process single-use plastic waste that can be done by school students. At the end of the session, we also got feedback from the campaign participants.

2. One Day No Plastic

We invited students and canteen vendors to reduce single-use plastic waste on a designated day. The students bring their own food and drink containers to the canteen and we also provide containers for the canteen vendors to use instead of plastic. We use paper-based containers, such as paper cups, paper bowls, and paper boxes. From this program, students prefer to use paper-based containers because they are more comfortable to use, tidier, and environmentally friendly.

The end result of One Day No Plastic is not 100% successful, but we can reduce the production of single-use plastic waste at school. If there is plastic waste such as food packaging or even paper containers, then we donate them to the nearest waste bank.

3. Waste Bank

We cooperate with the waste bank located near our school. Each class sorts and collects waste according to the criteria given by the waste bank, then collects it into a sack that we have provided.

Why do we use sacks? Because the sacks we use will be reusable and can reduce disposable plastic waste instead of using trash bags. Next, we weigh the sacks and donate them to the waste bank.

Changing an old habit into a new habit is difficult and takes a long time. However, if the bad habit continues, it will have a worse impact in the future. Ecogreen cannot act alone without the cooperation of all parties in the school, including students, teachers, vendors and parents. We would like to thank all those who have participated in this program and helped save the earth.

From the various exposure of the actions we have done, you realize still how valuable the slightest thing we do for this earth, will definitely have a big impact on the sustainability of the earth itself. As young people, we play an important role in this.

Let’s manage our waste wisely starting today!

Author: Fathia (15 tahun), Green Influencer Kota Depok