Project STOP Jembrana

Project STOP Jembrana

Project STOP Jembrana is building a new waste management system that will serve 160,000 residents in Jembrana and Negara—empowering the local community to collect, sort, and sell their own waste. This initiative, in partnership with Project STOP, provides a self-sufficient system which will not only provide around 100 jobs but will also prevent 2,200 tons of plastic waste from leaking into the environment every year, and collect and process a total of 18,000 tons of waste a year.

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Stopping the plastic leakage

Most of Jembrana’s residents have limited access to formal waste management. While organic waste can be composted in local gardens or fields, plastic waste is harder to dispose of by individuals and is often illegally dumped, buried, or burned. This drastically increases the risks of plastic waste leaking into Jembrana’s natural environment, and ultimately into the ocean.

To stop further plastic leakage, we teamed up with Project STOP—a programme co-founded by Borealis and SYSTEMIQ—to design and implement an integrated waste management system for the two areas, Jembrana and Negara. The system is strong but simple: waste is collected from residents once a week and brought to a new materials recovery facility to be sorted. Recyclable items are separated and processed for sale, while organic waste is composted. Profits are used to cover the operational costs of the facility, creating an economically sustainable system.

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“The reality is that there are many who dump their trash on vacant land, in the river, or even burn it. So our first focus is to educate and campaign for a change of behaviour... We are hoping that this model can be developed and implemented in other parts of Bali or nation-wide as an option to tackle the waste problems in Indonesia.” - I Made Yudi, Programme Manager of Project STOP Jembrana

Putting people first

The community is at the heart of Project STOP Jembrana. The system is designed to be completely owned and managed by the local community—allowing them to reap the rewards of their efforts. The initiative will help residents rid their waste, prevent thousands of tons of plastic waste from leaking into the environment, as well as create 100 local jobs for the community. One such new hire is I Made Yudi, Programme Manager of Project STOP Jembrana. His first task upon joining Project STOP Jembrana was teaching the community to understand and appreciate the value of a strong waste management system.

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Forging ahead, together

Operations for Jembrana’s customised sustainable waste management and recycling system began at the start of 2021. Within two years, nearly 160,000 people in the regency will benefit from this life-changing project that begins with stopping environmental plastic pollution.

Alliance Project Manager, Toby Manners, is committed to action—determined to help more communities across Indonesia: “It’s the people in these projects that keep me wanting to go back. In Indonesia, we have a combination of races, we have a combination of religions, we have a combination of political views, but they all come together and support projects of this kind. No one wants to see their community dirty. They all want to see this work.”

On the back of our learnings in Jembrana, we have commenced a feasibility study across several Indonesian cities in semi-urban and rural areas. The goal is to create, replicate, and scale more local waste collection and sorting systems across the country, diverting more plastic waste from the environment and further unlocking its true value through recycling.