Waste has becoming one of the most major problem in Indonesia, especially in West Java. Each day Bandung, capital city of West Java produce 1600 tons of waste. Due to increase in population the generation of waste is rapidly increase and waste management is crucial. There are a lot of ways in waste management and one of them is waste bank. Waste bank considered to solve waste and economic problem in surrounding society. One of the waste bank in Bandung is Bank SampahBumiInspirasi. Bank SampahBumiInspirasi located in small neighborhood in Cisitu Indah. Bank SampahBumiInspirasi can be one of the solution for waste problem nowadays also by giving economic benefit for the surrounding society.

BSBI owner, Isti Khairani have a main goal of this waste bank is to save the environment by educating people to sort waste from its source and gave them awareness that their waste  still have economic  value if it managed properly. The economic value can help the society to pay bills (electricity or water) or buy any basic food for daily needs. This deal will encourage people to sort their waste in order to pursue that economic value of the waste that they have. BSBI itself currently transforming into a social enterprise, BumiInspirasi Learning Center which has 3 pillars (Financially Literacy, Environmentally Friendly,and Islamic Characters). This transformation is expected to give more impact for the society.

Bank SampahBumiInspirasi operates like a regular commercial bank. First customer needs to open up an account first, after that every Sunday customer will deposit their non-organic solid waste. Before customer deposit their waste they need to clean their waste and sort based on its category, since the price of its category will be different. When customer deposit their waste, scaled by its category and entered in the customer’s book.  Every 2 weeks at Monday, BSBI will deposit all the waste from the customer to the collector. After this, customer will get the information about the number of money that they can get from their waste, as simple as that. With a simple system that operates just like a commercial bank, customer will feel the benefits and the facilities by storing their waste to BSBI. The customer will get the information about the amount of the money that they get in a short period of time, as a result customer are going to trust the waste bank and going to save more waste next week to get more money from their waste. With the increasing number of waste that being saved automatically the environment will also get cleaner.

Based on the data, Bank SampahBumiInspirasi can deposit up to 4100 kg of waste with an average of 1622.25 kg each month. This data shows us that each month more than 1600 kg of waste are being saved, instead of going to the landfill and worth nothing. Based on the data,capacity of temporary landfill (TPS) in Bandung is only 2.465 kg/day with total volume of waste reach 1300 tons a day that must be transported to landfills (TPA). BSBI can save up to 1622.25 kg of waste each month, means less waste that are going to the TPS. This number might seems small and not significantly matter, but turns out that this number of waste that saved by BSBI matter due the insufficient capacity of the TPA in Bandung. This shows that waste bank in becoming one of the solution for waste problem in Bandung.

Bank SampahBumiInspirasi really prioritize environment and their customer. Proven that one of Bank SampahBumiInspirasi customer named Mr. Wage can buy aqurban (worth Rp. 2.5 million) from his “waste” saving. Bank SampahBumiInspirasi also give sharing session to their customer about financial planning, the sharing session  was given by BumiInspirasi owner who is a certified financial planner. Some people might think that waste is just worthless, but this shows us that waste still have economic value if it treated right, and one of the way of treating it right is by saving it to waste bank. BSBI really shows support for their customer to become financially independent, not only by showing them how to get extra income but also by how to manage their income right by giving sharing session that lead by a professional financial planner.

Bank Sampah Bumi Inspirasi cannot work alone, so they are opening a collaboration for volunteers that called Bumi Inspirasi Volunteers (BIV). The volunteers comes from different background but they have the same mission, save the earth. Volunteers will get education on how to educate customers, educate kids from school, how to sort waste, and how to spread environment awareness, how to treat customers, how to deposit to the collector and many more. The purpose of BIV is to gather more people to increase the awareness about the environment. According to one of BIV named Listya, she feel extremely happy to joined BIV, she learned a lot of new things such as working at waste bank operational day, join the comic launching event, educating a lot of people from small children to adults, join article writing project, and lots of another exciting activities. People at BSBI also super friendly and kind, that makes her feels welcomed.

At the end ,there are a lot of people that think anorganic waste is just a waste that are worthless and pollutes the environment, but actually an-organic waste still have so much potentials of they were managed properly. They still have an economical value that can gave us extra income to pay our daily needs. One of the way to manage an-organic waste is by saving them to the waste bank, and BSBI can be one of the solutions.

Author : Andi Ameera Sayaka C