By: Masayu Yulien Vinanda

Two hundreds of kilograms waste has successfully been collected in an environmental action called “Coral and Cosatal Clean up”, held from Friday (26/06/2009) to Sunday (28/06/2009). Marine Buddies (community of marine lovers initiated by WWF Indonesia), local communities and its Neighborhood Youth Association (Karang Taruna) participated in the clean up action focused in Pari Island, Kepulauan Seribu, Jakarta.
The coral and coastal clean up involved 5 gropus consisting 5 to 10 volunteers. 5 groups dived along the shore, collected waste, classidfied them into 5 categories, and put them in the sack based on its category; transparent plastic waste, non-transparent plastic, stryfoam, rubber (shoes/sandals), and other waste (metal/glass)

Those 5 categories was foucused since they have economy value for local communities. “Plastic bottles and rubber waste for instance, we give them to local waste collector. We give styrofoam waste to seaweed farmers as an instrument to keep ropes afloat so that the seaweed can grow well. The rest, we put the waste in the waste disposal location,” Public Campigner of Marine Program WWF-Indonesi, Aulia Rahman, added.
Besides cleaning up the coast, collecting coral waste didn’t escape the Buddies’ notice either. For the coral clean up, Buddies put 12 divers on the shore who had registered to be volunteers. Those 12 divers divided into two groups diving in two diving sites. First group dived along the west site, and the other dived along the east.
Moreover, Buddies and local people also planted 100 hundreds of Mangrove seed, which they had bought from local people. The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and local people decided the planting sites.
Film showing titled ”Turtle  Trial”  produced by Sea Turtle Foundation was also the interesting part of the event. Other films were also showed. They are film series from Derawan, Berau, East Kalimantan, and short film about turtles in Wakatobi starred by Nugie, one of WWF-Indonesia Honorary Supporters. Hundreds of children and local people enthusiastically watched all the films been showed.

From the workshop of waste mangament, Buddies and local people could learn about how to manage waste (composting, the use of “takakura” basket) and how to recycle waste (make something out of general waste matter) so that they could earn extra income.