Trash Banks Produce Rp15.7 Billion

Probolinggo, East Java (Antara) - The Indonesian Environment Ministry has recorded a turnover of Rp15.7 billion per month from all existing trash banks in the country. "Now there are a total of 1,195 trash banks in 58 districts and cities with 106,000 workers that produce Rp15.7 billion per month," Environment Ministry's Waste Management Deputy Assistant Sudirman said here on Sunday. Sudirman noted that the presence of trash banks in the beginning was to overcome trash problem and to increase public awareness of waste management. "Trash management does not only make a city clean and beautiful but it also provides great economic benefits to the society," Sudirman said. He claimed that the trash banks had succeeded in improving the economy of the people as has been expected by the Ministry of Environment. "The people can save the trash in the trash banks to produce money to pay their electricity or telephone bills," he said, adding that a trash bank was a garbage management technique by adopting a banking management, but the instrument of transaction was garbage, not money. Sudirman said the presence of trash banks was initiated by the people of Bantuk district in Yogyakarta and now it has been developed and applied in various parts of the country. (*)