Institute for Economic and Social Research – Faculty of Economics and Business – Universitas Indonesia

The Economic and Environmental Benefit from The Waste bank (Bank Sampah) in Depok Municipality, West Java

Oktober 11, 2014

Depok Municipality is facing serious problem on waste management. Inhabited with 2 millions people along with 4 percent growth due to migration and 7 percent GDRP growth, Depok’s only landfill in Cipayung become overload. In the past two years, garbage volume has increased from 3,000 cubic meters to 4,500 cubic meters per day. From this amount, Depok Municipality has capacity to collect less than a third of total waste generated. Several policies introduced are not effective to reduce waste.

Despite the lack of success of government in solving waste problem, some communities in Depok established what so called ‘Bank Sampah’ (waste bank). Waste bank is a bank that uses inorganic waste as deposit. It emerges as a community-based program driven by waste bank administrators who work on voluntary basis with little incentive in terms of money. Established in 2011, now there are more than 500 waste banks in Depok Municipality. During June 2013 – December 2013 alone, the number of waste bank increased from 60 to almost 400 locations.

Waste bankprogram as community initiative supports government program by changing people’s behavior to sort their waste. Both inorganic and organic waste creates economic value after the sorting: the inorganic waste will be recycled and the organic waste will be composted. The organic waste is composted either in UPS (waste treatment facility for organic waste) or through homemade compost. Depok Municipality targeted that in 2014 Depok will have 2,000 locations to reduce 40 percent of the waste generated in Depok.

This study intends to examine the effectiveness of waste bank program in reducing waste and to estimate economic benefit gathered from waste bank activity. We employ case study of waste bank in three Kecamatan. We also analyze participation rate of waste bank member in three locations and sustainability of waste bank activity. We found that the benefit gathered from waste bank activity is varying across locations. After analyzing participation rate of waste bank members, we conclude that economic benefit offered is ‘fair’ to maintain participation of member in waste bank activity but the possibility of decreasing participation of member may occur if no action taken. We also found that waste bank program reduces waste generation but based on our estimation the number is only 2 percent. However, if certain assumptions hold, in the end of 2015 it could increase into 15 percent, but still less than local government’s prediction of 40 percent reduction.

(Alin Halimatussadiah, Departemen Ilmu Ekonomi, FEUI, September 19th , 2014)

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