Environmental Agency

Overview

Surabaya’s environment agency is the agency that oversees the city’s waste management efforts. The city used to be plagued by littering, drainage clogging, and the burning of refuse. However, thanks to the work of the agency, through cooperation with its sister city Kitakyushu (Japan), Surabaya is today a green city. It is an integral part of the city’s Smart City system, which includes Smart Government, Smart Economy, Smart Environment, Smart Living, Smart People, and Smart Mobility.

What we learnt about Innovation / Social Innovation

Multi-pronged holistic approach to waste management

Surabaya aims to minimise the waste that goes to its landfill through three methods. Firstly, at the household level, recycling of plastic waste is encouraged through Bank Sampah Induk, which pays for plastic waste brought to them. Secondly, waste may also be sent to community sorting facilities such as Jambangan TPS 3R, where plastic are separated for recycling, and organic waste for composting. Finally, waste sent to the Benowo Landfill is reduced through gasification which converts waste to energy. The successful involvement of the community in waste reduction and recycling is inspiring, because it addresses the problem of waste at its source - the consumers.

Monetisation of waste to create incentive (as part of their circular economy)

Surabaya, has 655 units of waste management banks and over 27 units of Houses of Composts. This helps to create a green economy, driven to create a sustainable world while aiding the locals in making profits, providing them a living. The monetisation of waste is an interesting concept because it changes the way people view waste, and consequently how they deal with it.

Tapping on local community spirit and a sense of competition to engineer change in behaviour

Surabaya's environmental agency tapped on the locals’ Kampung spirit to motivate them to live sustainably through conducting competitions and use their drive for a good cause. Winning kampungs are honoured with media publicity, and this generates a strong sense of pride amongst the residents. This was extremely fascinating as the competition initiative was personally catered to people in Surabaya with an understanding of what motivates them.

Other thoughts

As social innovation students who have visited the waste management sites at Benowa Landfill and TPR 3R Jambangan on Day 3, the environment agency provides an overview of the government perspective when partnering with private organisations to manage Surabaya’s waste. This allowed us to view the situation from the government’s lens and learn about how they engage the locals to manage their waste sustainably. Additionally, we learnt the importance of context while creating social innovation. The environmental agency shared that they implemented many competitions related to grading the cleanest Kampung and many Kampungs actively participate as they feel a great sense of pride if they won the cleanest Kampung. This initiative was implemented in Surabaya as over 60% are Kampongs. Thus, we learnt the importance of understanding the background of the place we are conducting social innovation for to implement the most effective solution to help our users.

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