Indonesia is recorded as the second largest contributor of plastic waste in the world after China. The Ocean Atlas 2017 report says that in one year Indonesia produced 3.22 million metric tons of unmanaged plastic waste. Of this amount, around 0.48 million to 1.29 million metric tons are dumped to the sea.
This condition has driven three UGM Faculty of Agriculture students to contribute to overcoming plastic waste problems. They are Yusroni, Junita Solin, and Novia Adistri Putri.
They initiated the development of technological innovation called PLASTIC. The innovation is an android-based application as a platform for the community to buy and sell waste recycling products.
With this prototype, they won two international awards, a Bronze Medal from the National Research Council of Thailand and Special Awards from the World Invention Intellectual Property Associations (WIIPA) on Thailand Inventors Day 2019 in early February.
“We were thinking of developing this idea seeing more and more plastic waste problems that have not yet been resolved,” Yusroni said on Wednesday (13/2) at UGM.
Waste problem threatens the aquatic ecosystem. Not long ago news on a stranded whale with a lot of plastic waste in its belly went viral. This fact encouraged them to develop methods so that people throw waste away in appropriate places, especially plastic waste. One way is to turn waste into economically valuable creative products through waste recycling.
“With this application, the hope is to foster community enthusiasm to recycle waste into products that are efficient, useful, and valuable,” he explained.
This application is equipped with a number of features, such as seller and buyer accounts, as well as product categories based on materials such as plastic, glass, wood, and other materials. Chat facilities are also in place to support a smooth transaction process and a trusted payment system. (UGM / Ika Public Relations)
Source: https://www.ugm.ac.id/id/berita/17670-mahasiswa-ugm-kembangkan-aplikasi-untuk-kurangi-limbah-plastik
