Supporting the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to Reduce Waste in the Community, APP Sinar Mas Collaborates with the Digital Waste Bank to Empower 3,900 Housewives

Jakarta, 28 February 2023 - In the effort to support the Ministry of Environment and Forestry's (KLHK) program to reduce waste in the community, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) Sinar Mas partners with the Digital Waste Bank to manage waste from the community into value-added recycling products.

“Through this collaboration, the Digital Waste Bank can sell used raw paper materials such as cardboard and waste paper from the community, which we collect to the APP Sinar Mas factory in Serang, PT Indah Kiat Pulp & Paper Tbk (IKPP) Serang,” said the CEO of the Waste Bank Digital Desty Eka Putri Sari on the sidelines of the Music Festival and National Waste Care Day Exhibition (HPSN) which took place at the Manggala Wanabakti Building KLHK.

Desty added that currently, they have trained more than 3,900 members of the Waste Bank, most of which are housewives who live in the city and Serang District, as well as Cilegon, Banten province.

“Our collaboration with APP Sinar Mas has only been running for 3 months, but we have supplied 5 times with a total of more than 10 tons of cardboard and waste paper to PT IKPP Serang. We are confident that with strong empowerment and collaboration efforts, we are targeting to supply more than 50 tons by the end of 2023,” Desty explained.

The Minister of KLHK Siti Nurbaya in her remarks at the peak of the HPSN 2023 said that KLHK continues to make innovative and integrated efforts from upstream to downstream as the principle of sustainable waste management through circular economy workings and waste as an energy source by optimizing the entire waste management value chain.

Siti further said that waste management not only reduces and minimizes its impact, but also considers aspects of public health and positions waste as a resource for the availability of raw materials, efficient use of resources, and as a source of the community’s economy.

Household waste management activities, if managed properly, can have potential economic value, such as selecting the type of paper waste which turns out to have a sale value to the company as an industrial raw material.

“Through this collaboration, we hope to reduce the impact on the environment, especially the problem of waste in the community, as well as contributing to the circular economy around the factory,” said the Director of APP Sinar Mas Suhendra Wiriadinata in a separate place.

Suhendra added, in the future the collaboration that has been carried out between PT IKPP Serang and the Digital Waste Bank will be adopted into other APP Sinar Mas operational factories. “A community empowerment-based waste bank management program like this is one of the solutions in reducing waste in the community, improving the community's economy, and fulfilling industrial raw materials,” Suhendra explained.