The customary village of Padang-tegal is
preparing a program of sorting and recycling garbage to preserve the
village located in the famous tourist town of Ubud. In the program, each
household will be obliged to sort their garbage and hand it over to the
village administration, which in turn will recycle it. Jro Bendesa
(customary village chief) I Made Gandra said the program would start as
early as December. He called on local people and business entities in
Ubud to support the program. “They should not treat this village solely
as a place to seek their livelihoods, but also as their home to nurture
and preserve.”
As part of the preparation, the village
administration invited local people to participate in advocacy programs,
including documenting slum areas around the villages using cameras or
video recorders, and screening documentaries on trash management. “The
village has allocated Rp 1.6 billion [US$167,120] to provide three
garbage bins for each household to use for free,” Gandra said, adding
that the budget would also be used to build a center for organic
fertilizer production. “We need a huge quantity of compost for the
Monkey Forest area. We usually pay tens of millions of rupiah every year
to buy it,” he said.
The Wenara Wana Monkey Forest sanctuary
is a top tourist destination in Ubud and the largest community-managed
forest on the island. The forest hosts not only two large groups of
long-tailed macaque and 115 species of plants, most of which are rare
plants required for Hindu rituals, but also a sprawling compound with a
temple, sacred spring and the Padangtegal cemetery. This year the
customary village was awarded the Kalpataru environmental award for its
effective way in managing the reserve. Padangtegal customary village has
used part of the profits generated by the sanctuary to finance
religious and cultural activities.
Now the profits will also be invested in
environmental programs. He added that the village was still looking for
an effective composting technology using a strain of bacteria. Gandra
said the village wanted to follow the example of Temesi dump site in
Gianyar, which has managed to process organic garbage into fertilizer.
He was aware it would not be easy to change the residents’ behavior with
regard to sorting garbage. “I’m optimistic that this program will work
because we will impose sanctions on villagers who don’t sort their
garbage,” he said, explaining that the village’s garbage disposal team
would not collect and transport the garbage of households that failed to
implement the program.
Padangtegal, where 635 families live,
consists of four hamlets: Padangtegal Kaja, Padangtegal Kelod,
Padangtegal Mekarsari and Padang Kencana. “Nowadays, it’s difficult to
find a field in Ubud, because all of them have been converted into art
shops. And some of the shop owners litter the river and sewers,” he
complained. Adi Sumiarta, a young resident of the village, welcomed the
program because it would help conserve the environment in the village
that sees many tourists visiting the popular Monkey Forest site. “I have
taken part since the program was first being disseminated. I hope it
will start by early next year.”
He said households took different actions
handling their garbage, with some throwing it into the river, while
others burned it or buried it in their back yard, or simply handed it
over to the garbage trucks. “In this program, the garbage will be
collected in the bins distributed to each house, and will be transported
by a group of workers.” He said the village’s initiative should be
rewarded by the local administration with help providing garbage
processing technology. Although Ubud was dubbed the best city in Asia,
garbage in Ubud has not been handled properly. In fact, garbage is a big
problem across Bali.
The integrated system of garbage
management for Denpasar, Badung, Gianyar and Tabanan, in which garbage
was to be turned into electricity, has not been realized. The public
private partnership for solid waste management guaranteed that starting
next year the Suwung dump site in Denpasar would be able to process all
the garbage sent to that final facility. Currently, the dump site
receives up to 400 tons of garbage per day and only a small quantity of
it could be processed into electricity. Catur Yudha Hariani, director of
the Center for Environmental Education (PPLH), said that sorting
garbage at household level was the ideal way of processing it, although
it was not easy to implement, but some villages had already taken the
initiative.
source : bali daily
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