12931301_10208787751312857_1116480895853418815_nSo this is tremendous.  Everyday we are receiving photos from our team of trainers in Jogja.  Everyday they are visiting a new neighbourhood and conducting seminars and trainings.

The trainers are visiting every single neighbourhood in the Jogjakarta city area. This will be the first city in Indonesia to integrate ecobricking not only as a solid waste management technique– but as a mass raising of ecological consciousness: Each of the people in these photos has learned not just how to ecobrick– but the dangers of plastic, the fallacy of recycling, and the concept of cradle-to-cradle creating.

logging 2

Our team of trainers learn how to use their smart phone to log ecobricks as they are brought in. This gives us live stats of the unfolding.

All the trainers are also logging their ecobricks using our Ecobricks App.  Its a simple application based on wordpress and google docss, but it is doing the trick.  The trainers and the neighborhoods are excited to see their ecobricks registered and to see their part in the growing community movement.  Through embedded live google charts, we can also see the process unfold live.  Its exciting.  We already have plans to advance and improve the app.

Come World Environment Day, we will have some super inspiring stats to share on how much plastic has been transformed– making Jogja’s example a beacon of inspiration to other cities.

Below is a field blog post from one of our lead trainers.

 

——————————–

Post by Ani Himawati
Great news!!
Woaaa can’t believe but this is true. Every single day I receive news and pics from friends (mostly ibu2) from the bank sampah activists from Jogja, the trainers of Ecobricks that just less than a month ago we did the TOT conducted by The Yogyakarta Environment Agency!!
Started from 17 March til soon 7 April, the sampah activists, the Ecobricks trainers have been going around each Kelurahan (village) in the whole city of Jogja, presenting about environmental issues and teaching how to Ecobricks!!! Not only that, they also reach each RW – hamlet or sub village – to meet more people, more communities!!
This seems like a real movement!! People’s movement!!  Something has been shifting here. Sampah, trash, used plastics, which before were only taken care or dealt by certain people (Pemulung, scavengers, maybe lower class people, kind of dirty and dark area that only few groups wanna deal with), now is changing. Through Ecobricks, more people, more groups, no matter what social class they belong to, now they are keen to work on trash especially used plastic. Look at the pics!!! The workshops have been happening in each village offices, people’s houses, in the complex of mosques, the yard or terrace, …
Not only that, the most important and relieving is that, people start understanding *why* we need to ecobrick? What’s the foundation and philosophy behind doing this hard work? More comprehensive knowledge about plastic, the facts of the plastic production, about recycling’s issue, what the danger when we do wrong with plastics, what the effect to our environment if we are not aware, what will happen in the near and long term future if we don’t care about them, how we need to change our life style and our consumption behaviour, … and what we can do with the used plastic or trash and even make them as part of the solution. *wew .. I should stop here!!
And of course Jogja case would not happen if the gov agency did not take Ecobrick as an official program and make it as an opportunity to work with communities!!! And saluuuuuut for all ibu2 and bapak2 and anak2 muda who are so keen spreading and working on this!!

——————

Ecobricking progress so far in Jogja: