Bersih Indonesia: Eliminasi Sampah Plastik initiative is one of the most ambitious waste management projects in Indonesia. The aspiration is to bring together the municipal and national governments, expertise and funds from the private sector, and the participation of local communities in a coordinated push to transform the waste management landscape.

The goal is to pioneer a self-sustaining and commercially viable system that could take the country significantly closer to its goal of achieving near-zero leakage by 2040.

Over the past 18 months, the Alliance has been working on the programme and detailed engineering design for the project. In addition to setting up infrastructure – including building Material Recovery Facilities, transfer stations, and vehicle fleets – Bersih Indonesia will introduce a regency-wide, affordable paid waste collection service to Indonesian households.

The system will collect all municipal solid waste, which typically has 15% to 20% plastic waste by weight. There has been strong interest in the huge volume of recyclables that will be recovered from the system. Multinational companies and local businesses have been engaged as potential purchasers of the commercialised material, ensuring supply at a scale that will support local end-markets for recyclates. This tackles one of the biggest issues facing the circular economy for plastics in Indonesia and paves the way for a self-sustaining business model.

A key element of the programme is the establishment of a public utility– locally known as a Badan Layanan Umum Daerah (BLUD) – operating under the Regency’s Environment Department, a first in Indonesia’s waste management sector. Enabled by the Alliance’s funding, the BLUD will assume full responsibility for the operations and maintenance of the waste management system.

Through the Bersih Indonesia programme, the Alliance aims to present a de-risked opportunity for the government and potential funding partners to finance the replication of the proven model in other regencies in Indonesia; eventually bringing waste management to a total of 6.5 million people and diverting some 140,000 tonnes of plastic waste from the environment annually when the programme is fully operational.

Integral to the success of the model will be local government ownership, community buy-in, and participation. With a large part of its success dependent on households segregating their waste into two bins for organic and inorganic waste respectively, a significant part of the preparation phase is focused on driving behavioural change within communities.

To pilot some of these behaviour change campaigns, we started some clean-up activities in 31 “hotspots” in 2022 in the Malang Regency, diverting 13,500 tonnes of unmanaged waste from informal dumpsites, of which 3,100 tonnes comprised of plastic waste. We involved communities and local leaders so that they would be able to see what a future without waste in their communities looks like.

We continue to be enthusiastic about the programme – as ASEAN’s largest economy, Indonesia is a key player in the race to reduce plastic waste in the region and globally. We anticipate being able to secure collaboration across the public, private, and people sectors could bring about the change in thinking needed in plastic waste management, not just in Indonesia, but beyond. If successful, Bersih Indonesia could provide a blueprint for financially sustainable waste management projects in other underserved communities.