Kak Annye is Coming to Town!

“Mel, aku lagi di Teknik Arsitektur nih.”

“Kak Annye di Jogja? Ngapaiin? Waa ayo ketemu!!”

Beberapa waktu yang lalu, GamaEARTH kedatangan tamu spesial dari Jakarta. Kak Annye Meilani namanya, beliau adalah koordinator program Climate Smart Leaders 2012 ketika saya secara beruntung berhasil menjadi salah satu finalisnya -- lebih sering dipanggil Ibu Asrama sebenarnya, hehe. Kebetulan sekali hari itu Kak Annye datang ke Jogja mengunjungi Teknik Arsitektur untuk mengadakan sebuah talkshow atau sejenis workshop mengenai bangunan ramah lingkungan (if I’m not mistaken) bersama dengan tamu-tamu asing dari Swedia bersamanya. Kebetulan juga pas sekali harinya adalah hari rutin GE weekly sharing, jadi saya ajaklah beliau untuk berkunjung ke weekly sharing GamaEARTH.

Diawali dengan pertemuan antusias dengan cium dan peluk di Teknik Arsitektur, kemudian berjalanlah saya dan beliau ke Perpustakan Teknik untuk melakukan weekly sharing. Kak Annye ini adalah lulusan Psikologi Universitas Padjajaran yang sekarang bekerja untuk berbagai macam NGO yang ada di Indonesia, salah satunya adalah Yayasan Pembangunan Berkelanjutan yang memiliki program CSL.

Berbeda sekali dengan weekly sharing-weekly sharing sebelumnya ketika kami membahas secara teknik kimia issu-issu lingkungan dilanjutkan dengan rapat, kali ini kami membahas mengenai perkembangan diri, khususnya mengenai cita-cita. Oleh beliau, kami ditanya satu-satu soal cita-cita dan tujuan jangka panjang ketika kita hidup. Akhirnya, kami pun mulai berkonsultasi masalah ini satu-satu kepada Kak Annye.

Curhat dengan Kak Annye :)

Kebanyakan dari kami adalah kami masih belum yakin tentang tujuan dan cita-cita kami, masih ada keraguan di sana-sini. Dari Kak Annye, kami belajar bahwa, jadikanlah cita-cita itu adalah sesuatu yang paling membuat kita bahagia dan tentunya bermanfaat. Kalau kita bahagia kan sebenernya semua masalah beres. Masalah orang tua, teman-teman yang memandang tidak suka itu tidak perlu dirisaukan, karena hidup kita ya kita yang menjalankan, bukan orang tua bukan teman.

Kata beliau lagi, kita harus punya balon transparan di sekitar tubuh kita. Balon itu gunanya untuk menerima apa yang perlu diterima dan memantulkan apa yang tidak perlu. Semacam penyaring. Tujuannya untuk meningkatkan diri kita sendiri, agar kita tidak down ketika dicela, dan mau belajar untuk kritik yang membangun.

Kalau punya cita-cita atau tujuan tertentu, bayangkanlah tujuan tersebut sejelas-jelasnya dalam kepala, sedetil mungkin, rasakan bagaimana rasanya ketika kita berada di situasi yang kita inginkan tersebut. Setelah itu baru pikirkan langkah apa yang akan kita ambil untuk menempuh tujuan tersebut. Laksanakanlah langkah tersebut sambil memasang bayangan tersebut di kepala lekat-lekat. Lakukan sebaik mungkin dan jangan lupa berdoa. Kurang lebih, begitu kata Kak Annye. Berpikir dari belakang.

Weekly sharing diakhiri dengan hati yang semakin semangat untuk meraih mimpi. Dan khusus untuk saya, mengantar Kak Annye kembali ke Hotel :3. Senang sekali hari ini, kami sayang Kak Annye. Sukses selalu untuk segala hal baik yang dikerjakan Kak Annye bersama dengan NGO-NGO nya J

Kak Annye dan GamaEARTH :3 

Melisa Pramesti Dewi.

weekly sharing: carrier bag

in our daily life, we need a carrier bag to carry our groceries. the most popular bags are paper and plastic. what kind of bag should we use?

well, let's see the ordinary people's mindset about these bags:

Plastic

Needs 1000 years to decompose

Made from unrenewable source

Paper

Organic waste

Needs less time to decompose

Made from renewable source

are those facts real? well, let's see..

i want to give you their plus-minus sides. then, you will be the one who will make the decision whether you want to use paper bag or plastic bag as your daily carrier bag.

Paper

Paper bag

•weighs about 6 times more than a plastic bag

•takes up to 10 times more storage space

•often breaks after a single use

This means that….

•more fuel is used to transport paper bags

•takes up more space when they’re thrown away

•more bags are wasted

Fact: paper bags use about the same amount of oil to produce as a plastic bag. so that's why it is more expensive than plastic bag.

 Plastic

• Plastic bags are light – they’re by far the lightest of all materials used for carrier bags

• Plastic bags are durable – they can be re-used again and again

• Plastic bags are recyclable

plus, there is a new technology called biodegredable plastic bag. now this biodegredable plastic bag is booming in indonesia. but, what will happen if people use these bags?

In landfill

These holes in the ground are not designed to break down waste

In recycling systems

Plastics recyclers don’t like biodegradable plastics. They say that they’re difficult to identify and if left in the system can contaminate an entire batch of plastic waste, which stops it all being recycled.

and also, there is a concern that biodegradable bags will make people think that it’s alright to litter. but in that 2 years gap, who knows it will be eaten by animal? this will make them suffer and die.

resume about biodegredable plastic bags:

Although bio-based plastics are renewably sourced, this does not mean that they will reduce waste. Instead, they produce a different form of plastic waste that may require different waste management systems. Biodegradable plastics do not directly reduce plastic waste either, but make it less persistent in the environment.

GamaEARTH's Discussion:

gama earth's members had a discussion about the carrier bag they're going to use. surprisingly, we do not have an absolute voice. gama earth's members had different point of view about these bags. curious?

team paper: some of us chose paper bag. first, because it is made from renewable source. and because of its expensive price, people tend to cherish and protect the bag even more. so, we can reuse them again and again

team plasic: some of us chose plastic bag because it has good feature such as durable, strong, light, and cheap. we also can reuse them to sew our raincoat (and many more 'reuse' examples from mas barkah (especially in computer ware) that sadly the writer can not understand it to the fullest due to lack of understanding about computer).

so, how about your own choice? will you use paper bag or plastic bag? :)

-dzikrima

Clothes Waste

Weekly Sharing March 21st, 2013

by Lady Varesqua Valentina

We always thinking about less waste with less plastic bottle by using tumbler.
We always thinking about carrier bag, better to use plastic bag or paper bag.
We always thinking about go green with less paper by using e-book.

We always think about what we see, but never see ourselves.

When you look him from the outside, you know that he uses some clothes.
1. Jacket
2. Batik
3. Jeans
4. and of course underwear

People often change their clothes in a day, many clothes that they use in a day.
People sometimes buy a new cloth and many clothes that they buy in every time they go to shop.
And the fact, some clothes are rarely used or used once a month or a year.

Actually :
•  People not regularly checking what is in their wardrobes, clothes are most commonly unworn because they no longer fit or are in disrepair.
•  Many people lack an ability to alter clothing or undertake more complex repairs
•  People are willing to buy and keep their own clothes but won’t to share it, even though they never wear the clothes.

 

The global average water footprint of cotton fabric is 10,000 litre per kilogram.
It means that :
•  It takes 7,996 gallons water to make a leather jacket
•  One cotton shirt of 250 gram costs about 2500 litres water.
•  A jeans of 800 gram will cost 8000 litres water.

Our habits by fashion consumerism not only about the water footprint, but also the impact and the waste.

There are some facts about clothes

The materials used to make the clothes we buy also matter:
•  Polyester, the most commonly used manufactured fiber, is made from petroleum in an energy-intensive process that emits volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and acid gases into the air. The process also uses a large amount of water for cooling.
•  The manufacturing of nylon emits nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas with a carbon footprint 310 times that of carbon dioxide.
•  Rayon, derived from wood pulp, often relies on clearing old growth forests to make way for water-hungry eucalyptus trees, from which the fiber is derived.
•  Cotton, found in most clothing, is the most pesticide-dependent crop in the world. It takes one-third of a pound of pesticides to make one t-shirt.
•  When manufacturing clothes, dyeing requires a hefty amount of water, and its fixatives often flow into rivers and sewers. Also, all “easy care” and “permanent press” cottons are treated with formaldehyde.
(http://earth911.com/recycling/household/clothing-and-textile/facts-about-clothes/ )

 What will happen if we still have a habit “fashion consumerism”?

•  Americans still throw away more than 68 pounds of clothing and textiles per person per year. Clothing and other textiles represent about four percent of the municipal solid waste stream.
•  UK throw away more than 1 million tonnes of textiles every year.
•  Clothes go to landfill.
Landfill sites pose a threat to local ground water supplies. Every time it rains, water drains through all the rubbish, and picks up chemicals and hazardous materials from whatever is in the landfill site. This includes chemicals used in clothing and textiles such as dyes and bleaches. The water collects at the bottom of the landfill, often in large amounts and can be up to 200 times as toxic as raw sewage.
(http://www.ethicalfashionforum.com/the-issues/recycling)
 

What should we do?

•  Stop shopping and used your full-life-time clothes.
If the clothing is not wearable, convert it into wipes that can be used around the house to clean up spills, wash your car, etc. Take soft clothing or towels and tear them into usable pieces for dust rags. Repurpose your old towels by donating them to an animal shelter or organisation, they could always use fresh towels for their animals to sleep on. If you are handy with a sewing machine, the clothing materials could be re-purposed into items such as cloth bags, hats, mitts, quilts, etc.
By re-using existing fibres and textiles, there is no need to make these textiles from raw materials (such as cotton, wool, and synthetic fibres) This saves on the energy used and pollution caused during manufacturing processes like dying, washing, and scouring.
•  Even if the clothing is un-wearable and you don’t have the time to do anything with it, ask the Charity if they will still accept the item(s). In most cases the charities have agreements with recyclers to accept any clothing items that are un-wearable.
(http://eartheasy.com/blog/2010/05/lets-keep-clothing-out-of-our-landfills/)

Donating clothes to charity:
•  Charity shops collect over 15 million sacks of textiles and other materials from UK households every year.
•  Over 363,000 tonnes of textiles are sent on for reuse and recycling by charity shops every year
•  If each household in the UK donated only one extra black bag of clothing, we could save 25 million bags from ending up in landfill and raise over £740 million for charity.
•  only 2% of materials donated to charity shops end up in landfill
•  Reuse of clothing saves 29kg CO2 per kg of clothing compared to recycling and 33kg CO2 compared to disposal
•  Reduce 3.6 kg of CO2 emissions, 6000 litres of water consumption, 0.3 kg of the use of fertilizers, 0.2kg of the use of pesticides
(http://tilts-head.com/2012/10/17/statistics-uk-recycling-reuse-and-waste-of-clothing/)

But whatever option you choose, it is important to know that there are options. We all live busy lives but with a little effort we as a society have the capacity to divert over 10 million tons of textile waste from the landfills each year! A prime example of how a little effort can go a long way!

Deklarasi Peduli Pengelolaan Sampah

Semua aktivitas yang dilakukan oleh makhluk hidup di dunia ini pasti menghasilkan sampah. Begitu pula aktivitas yang dilakukan oleh civitas akademik di lingkungan kampus, baik berupa sampah makanan, fotokopian, ataupun limbah praktikum. Namun ternyata tidak semua civitas kampus tahu bagaimana cara mengelola sampah yang baik. Banyak yang masih belum memisahkan sampahnya (sampah plastik, organik, dll). Kalau di jurusan teknik kimia sih sudah membiasakan memilah sampah kertas, plastik, dan organik. Hehehehe...

Agar sampah tidak menjadi problem, maka pada tanggal 7 Desember 2012 lalu diadakan deklarasi peduli pengelolaan sampah di fakultas teknik UGM. Acara ini diprakasai oleh Waste Refinary Center yang bekerja sama dengan University of Boras. Tujuannya adalah agar civitas kampus sadar akan cara pengelolaan sampah yang baik dan benar.

GamaEARTH diwakili oleh Ririn, Asti, Upi, dan Wahyu. Ada juga perwakilan KMTK yaitu Mas Aldin

GamaEARTH turut serta dalam acara ini. Kami ikut menandatangani deklarasi ini.

Devi Swasti

Wahyu, the birthday boy yang kebetulan sedang berulang tahun pada hari yang sama

perwakilan KSTM

Isi deklarasi peduli pengelolaan sampah fakultas teknik ugm:

kami yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini menyatakan:

1. kami siap untuk mengubah perilaku kami dan kepedulian kami terhadap kepedulian sampah

2. kami siap untuk membuang sampah pada tempatnya dan memilahnya dengan baik dan benar

3. kami berpartisipasi aktif dalam usaha-usaha pengelolaan sampah.

Pak Panut membuka acara

Pembacaan deklarasi bersama-sama oleh pihak University of Boras dan Universitas Gadjah Mada diikuti seluruh peserta

Kemudian peserta dibagi menjadi dua kelompok. Tim GamaEARTH bertugas untuk memilah sampah di lapangan belakang jurusan arsitektur.

Semoga dengan adanya deklarasi peduli pengelolaan sampah ini semua civitas akademik fakultas teknik ugm dapat mengelola sampahnya dengan benar.

-Killua