The event, which coincided with Hari Peduli Sampah Nasional (National Trash Awareness Day), aims to raise awareness about the dangers of littering and plastic waste, and the importance of separating our waste and recycling. This year, with the Covid-19 pandemic still happening in the nation, Hari Bersih Indonesia focused on asking individuals to start to segregate waste at home, whilst working with a limited number of communities to clean up rural areas around the country.
In Jakarta, which is currently experiencing tighter Covid-19 regulations, not to mention devastating flooding in some parts of the capital city, Hari Bersih Indonesia reached out to individuals, who were asked to separate waste from their homes and upload videos to share during a live-streaming event which was streamed through Jakarta’s Environment Agency’s YouTube account the same morning. This event, which gave practical tips on how to reduce, separate and recycle waste, was participated by over 3,700 people and has been watched over 56,000 times since the stream went live.
Collaborating with ocean and river clean-up initiative ReSea Project, former fishermen cleaned marine waste and debris from DKI Jakarta’s Muara Baru harbour and Pejagalan River, North Jakarta, raising awareness to the severity of the marine waste problem in Indonesia.
In areas outside of Jakarta, 627 volunteers from 32 environmental communities across the nation gathered in groups of no more than 20 people to collect litter while following Covid-19 protocols. In total, 850 kilograms of recycled waste and 7,965 kilograms of residual waste were collected from mountains, beaches, and rivers and even underwater.
This year’s event included 4,532 individual participants, who mainly came from Jakarta and succeeded in collecting 2,931 kilograms of recycled waste and 3,927 kilograms of residual waste. This brought the final participant number to just over 8,800 volunteers.
Despite the challenges caused by the pandemic, it was heart-warming to see that people were still willing to do something good for the environment.
“Although this year saw significantly fewer volunteer numbers due to the pandemic, we are very pleased with the results. We were able to work with Dinas Lingkungan Hidup DKI Jakarta to socialize their new Kupilah Sampah Dari Rumah (I Separate My Waste From Home) program, which is a huge step in the right direction towards reducing the amount of waste that ends up at landfills and empowering people to take control of the waste situation in Indonesia,” said Angela Richardson, Indonesia Indah Foundation’s Founder and Chairwoman.
Hari Bersih Indonesia worked together with Jakarta’s Environment Agency and the Jakarta administration to spread the importance of sorting waste at the household level.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the announcements from the government regarding the Covid-19 preventive health protocols, Indonesia Indah Foundation did not open clean-up sites in areas that are still considered black or red zones.
Hari Bersih Indonesia 2021 was sponsored by Wardah Cosmetics and Square Resources Holdings.