Jakarta Globe, Nadia Bintoro, Jun 05, 2015
Ubud, Bali. Last sunny weekend at the Green School, Sibang Kaja, Ubud, positive vibes wafted thick in the air among students and adults alike during the “Sustainable Solutions: From the Ground up” event. Two days of conference meetings, hands-on workshops and project showcases, the event gathered Bali’s eco change-makers to demonstrate their practical solutions to the island’s most urgent environmental issues.
Ubud, Bali. Last sunny weekend at the Green School, Sibang Kaja, Ubud, positive vibes wafted thick in the air among students and adults alike during the “Sustainable Solutions: From the Ground up” event. Two days of conference meetings, hands-on workshops and project showcases, the event gathered Bali’s eco change-makers to demonstrate their practical solutions to the island’s most urgent environmental issues.
Co-hosted
by the Green School and the United Nations Office for REDD+ Coordination in
Indonesia (Unorcid), The “Sustainable Solutions: From the Ground Up,” was held
over the last weekend in May and was jam packed with 500 enthusiastic
participants including 120 students from the local school.
In addition
to raising awareness of existing environmental problems, the event presented
the practical solutions to sustainable lifestyle through actions. “Sustainable
Development: from the Ground Up” sought to empower individuals by providing a
forum for meaningful, engaging discussions and by offering practical, simple
daily solutions for living a more environmentally conscious and sustainable
life.
The event
activities consisted of segments focusing on food, energy and waste management,
all aiming to inspire and empower individuals who are ready to take on the
challenge of living sustainably.
The Speaker
Series highlights a diverse line-up of local and global stakeholders keen on
providing solutions to the challenges which come with sustainable development,
while the workshops provide a more practical and easy way to reducing the
carbon footprint.
In the
Solutions Showcase, held in the bamboo architectures which characterizes the
Green School, a plethora of vendors presented their eco-products and services.
The area filled with curious visitors. Their endless questions drilled the
hosts for information on practical ways to implement sustainable lifestyle from
the various booths displaying environmental projects, initiatives and
educational programs led by local NGOs and youths.
Among them
was Biowear which presented an alternative-to-plastic disposable product
ranges, including the Eco Bag, the biodegradable, compostable and recyclable
bioplastic bags made from cassava roots. The visitors were left in awe upon
discovering that the eco-plastic bag is dissolvable in hot air and is harmless
if consumed by animals. It is estimated that more than one million sea
creatures die every day from plastic entanglement and mistakenly eating plastic
bags seen as food.
While in
the next-door vestibule in Meranggi Bale, kids from the local schools were
attentively glued to their mobile phones to try the new mobile app “Cash for
Trash” during the “Sampah punya Harga” (“Trash has value”) workshop. A winner
of “Start-up Weekend,” a competition held in Ubud’s creative hub Hubud last
November, the “Cash for Trash” app is a mobile app aiming to tackle the problem
of inadequate waste management system in Bali through the use of popular
technology. Olivier Pouillon and Febri, from the “Cash for Trash” team, led the
crowd of expecting participants in downloading the app .
Currently
only available for Android phones, “Cash for Trash” is designed to connect
users with a pemulung (scavenger) to pick up their recyclable trash at home.
Using similar geo-mapping technology employed by other pick-up services Gojek
or Uber Taxi, with the “Crash for Trash” app, the user can pinpoint the
location and search for the closest pemulung to arrange pick up.
“At first,
we developed this app to target the students, because as we know they’re the
heavy mobile phone users in Indonesia, but now we see the potential to launch
this app to the wider public,” said “Cash for Trash” founder Pouillon. “In
giving price to the trash and inform people on the possibility of selling this
trash, we want to change the paradigm attached to rubbish, so people will think
that throwing rubbish means throwing money so they’d rather sell it through
Cash for Trash and recycle.”
The app
does not only provide practical solutions for Bali, but also aims to offer
inspiration on a global scale. Nilam is one participant who came all the way
from Maldives to seek practical solutions to tackle the nation’s mounting trash
problem.
“The
Maldives is just like Bali, it’s an island nation, so I came today to pick up
some ideas on how Bali [solves] environmental problems. And upon learning all
these great practical ideas, I’m eager to see which options we can implement in
Maldives.”
The
solutions on offer were also welcomed by local participants. Made Wangsean,
co-founder of Wirausaha Bali, an organization focusing on promoting the welfare
of marginalized Balinese communities, commented: “I really appreciate that
Green School organized this kind of activity and invited us to get involved.
Especially, because many of our projects are focused on sustainable
environmental programs for the local communities. We hope that this kind of
activity can happen regularly and integrate more locals to find sustainable
solutions together.”
Continuing
in the spirit of environmentalism, the visitors
then moved to the school’s main hall in Sangkep to engage in the panel
talk “New Life for Trash,” attended by Ahmad Djuhara from Djuhara + Djuhara
architect firm, Pouillon, Melati and Isabel Wijsen from Bye Bye Plastic Bag
campaign, and Herni Hastutie from PPLH Bali.
Each panel
member presented their eco-initiatives across various fields to give new
meaning and value to trash. Djuhara, a prominent architect based in Jakarta,
showcased his projects of designing houses entirely made from left-over and
used building materials. His designs are not only unique but solid proof that
living sustainably does not need to be expensive.
But to
solve today’s pressing environmental issues, you need to get your hands dirty.
And dirty it was, as the kids tried to make compost while learning about
permaculture from the Kul Kul Farm, held in Green School’s very own vegetable
garden. Children as young as 3 years old happily molded soil around beetroot
seedlings before planting them.
With
laughter echoing around the garden and faces smeared with dirt, the children
truly learned about a sustainable lifestyle.
Satya
Tripathi, director and executive head of Unorcid, said: “Indonesia’s young
people are a powerful force for engendering the changes in values and practices
that we need to see in order to achieve sustainable development. Our generation
has the responsibility of doing what we can to steer humanity in the right
direction, and to provide young people with the tools they need to accelerate
along this pathway.”
The Green
School aims to assist REDD+ & UNORCID’s initiative to educate one million
Green Youth Ambassadors across Indonesia by 2017, putting them at the frontier
of green education in Indonesia.
UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon greets young students in Sibang Kaja,
Bali on
Aug. 28, 2014. (Photo courtesy of Green School Bali)
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