Bandung Residents Turn Waste Into Shopping and Healthcare Vouchers

BANDUNG, GARISBUMI.com – Waste sorted from home can provide economic benefits as well as help reduce the burden on final processing sites (TPA). In Bandung City, residents can even exchange segregated waste for shopping vouchers and health check services.

This creative method was applied in the Garbage Bazaar Shopping activity held by the Great Bandung community at Bandung City Hall, Saturday, September 12 2026. This activity was part of a series of commemorations of the 216th Anniversary of the City of Bandung.

This program encourages people to change their perspective on waste. Items previously considered useless can have economic value after being sorted and collected properly.

Bandung Mayor Muhammad Farhan also set an example by exchanging sorted waste. The 8 kilograms of paper waste and 0.5 kilograms of clean plastic he brought were valued at IDR 22,000.

The value of the waste is then converted into shopping vouchers worth IDR 5,000 and bonuses for health check services.

"Alhamdulillah, hopefully this initiative from residents can provide added value to our efforts to ensure that waste handling is a joint handling, not just carried out by the government alone," said Farhan.

According to him, the movement built by Great Bandung shows that the community can take a direct role in solving the waste problem. The government needs to provide space and support so that similar movements continue to develop.

Farhan hopes that the Garbage Bazaar Shopping program will not only take place at the city level. It is hoped that this activity can reach the community down to the sub-district and sub-district levels.

"I really hope that the Great Bandung community, whose achievements have been extraordinary, can expand to the sub-district and sub-district areas. That really depends on friends from Great Bandung," he said.

Bandung City Government Opens Collaboration Space

The Bandung City Government, continued Farhan, is ready to open a space for collaboration with the community and society. This waste management pattern based on citizen participation is also considered to have the potential to be implemented in other areas in West Java.

"The main thing is that the government will provide a place and provide as much support as possible so that collaboration between communities and society with government programs can run," he said.

The movement to sort waste from homes is becoming increasingly important due to the high level of waste generation in the city of Bandung. Bandung City Government data shows that waste generation throughout 2025 will reach 1,496.31 tonnes per day or around 546,151 tonnes a year.

Of this amount, organic waste dominates with a percentage of 44.90 percent. Meanwhile, the material that can still be recycled reached 37.87 percent.

This data shows the large potential of waste that can still be utilized before being thrown into landfill. Sorting from source is the key so that recyclable waste is not mixed and ends up as residue.

Waste Management Still Faces Challenges

Farhan admitted that waste management in Bandung City still faces a number of challenges, both technical and non-technical. The government is currently continuing to improve waste management and technology.

"After we conducted an evaluation with Bappenas, public works and the Ministry of the Environment, it showed that our ability to carry out good waste transportation management is still far behind. So, we are currently working on improving one of them," he said.

Apart from improving the transportation system, changing community behavior is also an important part of waste management. The habit of sorting waste requires knowledge, education and ongoing assistance.

"Sorting requires knowledge and education. So, we started to enter through education and outreach. One thing we do is use Gaslah. That's the official thing. Community initiatives like Great Bandung force people to know what and how to sort," he explained.

Farhan emphasized that no matter how sophisticated waste processing technology is, it will not provide maximum results if the waste has not been sorted from home.

"Because from the start, the most important thing is that we all realize, no matter how sophisticated the technology is used for waste management, there must be sorting. Period," he stressed.

Through activities such as Bazaar Shopping Using Trash, waste is no longer only seen as an environmental problem. If sorted and managed from the source, waste can provide economic benefits while strengthening citizen involvement in protecting the environment.