Pati, 19 September 2023 - Garudafood engaged the youth organization (Karang Taruna) of Sukobubuk Pati Village and more than 20 waste banks in Pati, Central Java, in managing organic and inorganic waste. This is an ongoing collaboration since 2021 to support a sustainable lifestyle.
"We support the enthusiasm of village communities who are starting to adopt a sustainable lifestyle to overcome organic and inorganic waste," said Augustinus Winardi, Head of Garudafood Pati Business Unit.
"We believe that collaboration between the society, local government, business actors, and communities can develop a waste management value chain which ultimately contributes to reducing national waste and achieving the Green House Gas emission reduction target set by the central government," he added.
"We can start by taking small steps to create major changes with a spirit of mutual cooperation and mutual development," said Augustinus Winardi.
Organic waste, in the form of food waste, from households, markets, and factory canteens is processed by Karang Taruna using the maggot bio-conversion through the Garudafood Maggot Entrepreneurial Village development program.
The Garudafood Maggot Entrepreneurial Village has produced more than 4 tons of fresh maggots or live maggots, more than 6 kg of maggot eggs, maggot fertilizer, and more than 120 free-range chickens as derivative commodities. The sales revenue is fully managed by the Karang Taruna of Sukobubuk Village.
On the same occasion, Garudafood also collaborated with environmental activists to reactivate more than 20 Waste Bank communities in Pati to overcome the issue of inorganic waste, especially plastic packaging or Multi-Layer Packaging (MLP). The collaboration between the Garudafood factory in Pati and the Waste Bank community successfully collected more than 6 tons of MLP waste. In addition to providing guidance and assistance, dozens of communities participated in workshops on plastic waste recycling to be processed into press boards to make commercial crafts, such as tissue boxes, drop-boxes, key chains, chairs, tables, and others.
The plastic waste recycling workshop was held on Tuesday, 19 September 2023 at the Garudafood factory in Pati, Central Java.
Garudafood hopes that these programs can raise the community's awareness to care more about the environment and be able to consistently implement a zero-waste lifestyle.