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Blum Call 45 Taiwan English
Blum Call 45 Taiwan English
Arundati Shinta
Proklamasi University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
arundatishinta@yahoo.com
and
ABSTRACT
This essay presents several creative ideas of implementing civic education in order to
strengthen the Indonesian National Resilience. The discussion will be focused on the
issues of creative waste management education. The issue of waste management is
very strategic and crucial since currently Indonesia is in the waste emergency situation.
In 2010 Indonesia was recognized shamefully as the second highest rank of waste
producer after China. In 2017, Indonesia positioned as the third highest waste food
producer after United Emirate Arab and India. In 2050 it is predicted that the number of
plastic waste in Indonesian ocean will be much higher than the fish. It will be true if there
is no significant action either from the government or communities to reduce and
manage waste. This situation reflects a decrease of environmental social awareness of
the society. After 63 years of independence, Indonesian government published the first
regulation that mentioned waste explicitly (Constitution No. 8 by the year 2008).
Unfortunately, the regulation has not yet enforced seriously and the people’s awareness
on waste management is low. To overcome this troublesome situation, there should be a
civic education (as well as character education). The civic education is not only applied
at school but also in daily activities. This kind of education should be applied creatively
since millennial generation tends to be bored with conventional civic education. In this
essay, there are four creative ideas suitable to strengthen young generation’s National
Resilience i.e. plogging, bank of waste, waste food management, and 4R activities.
1. Introduction
In the current era of 4.0 Industrial Revolution, the problem of Indonesian national
resilience, especially in the field of environmental issues, continue to be world
discussion. The bad Citarum river management in West Java caused the river gets the
title of the dirtiest and most polluted river in the world. The predicate was given by the
World Bank (Hutton, 2013; National Geographic Society, 2018). This embarrassing
predicate still haunts Indonesia in the global world, Indonesia is reckoned as the second
large waste disposal country in the world after China (Jambeck et al., 2015). In 2017,
Indonesia ranked the third worst in the world in the amount of food waste after the
United Arab Emirates and India (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2017). In one year, the
thrown out food waste was as much as 13 million tons. Ironically, 40% Indonesian
people lack nutrition while the other 10% actually are obese (Anatasia, 2018). If there is
no concrete actions to overcome this situation, Indonesians will be ashamed to admit
themselves as Indonesians. If this happens then the national resilience will be fragile.
The focus of this paper is on the environment, especially about waste
management. It is because rubbish and garbages are often regarded as insignificant
things, and no one is willing to take care of those things unless the garbage officers. The
impact is Indonesians are known as people who are not responsible for their own
garbages. Even now, Indonesia is declared as a country with an emergency plastic
waste. This is because it is estimated by researchers from Indonesian science institution
(Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia / LIPI) that in 2050, the amount of plastic waste
will exceed the number of fish in Indonesian waters (Kompas, 2019c). This is defferent
from the people of Singapore and Japan who are known to be very responsible for their
own garbage (Azhari, 2016). In this condition, the question is: What creative behavior
can be done by Indonesian Millenials to deal with this garbage emergency?
This paper will discuss the significance of garbage analysis, why garbage is
mounting and the creative ideas that the millenial generations can do to make trash
profitable. Through this paper, it is expected that various inputs can be formulated for
the concerned parties, especially educational institutions, about the urgency of educating
and preparing Indonesian people who are responsible on their own garbages for the
sake of the national resilience.
This paper is based on literature reviews. The approach used in the analysis is the
qualitative methods that consist on five steps (Vertica, 2017), as follows:
a. Descriptive or collecting informations. In this step, relevant informations were
collected to describe the phenomenon as a whole. The first question at this stage
is : What phenomenon happens with garbages? The data was collected from
various documents.
b. Diagnostic or first insight. The relevant question at this stage is why the
phenomenon of mounting garbage happens? Informations about the causes of
the mounting garbage were collected at this stage.
c. Predictive or advanced insight to prepare for the better future. The relevant
questions at this stage are : What will happen if garbage keep mounting without
any effort to overcome this situation? What is the significance to discuss the
garbage phenomenon? Who will be affected by the garbage phenomenon? Who
should be responsible to overcome the mounting garbage?
d. Prescriptive or decision-making. The relevant questions are: What actions
should be done if the government does not intervene to overcome the garbage
phenomenon? Whether the community can act alone without the government
intervention in overcoming waste problems? What creative ideas can be done
immediately to overcome waste? What kind of waste can be targeted to deal
with? When will the actions be carried out?
e. Pre-emptive or taking action. The relevant questions are : What further actions
can be done to overcome the garbage phenomenon? What are the intrinsic
values for people who take actions to overcome the mountainous garbage? As a
note, the fourth (prescriptive) and the fifth (pre-emptive) are included in the
discussion of steps that can be taken when the government and the community
collectively cannot be expected to immediately address the mountainous
garbage phenomenon in order to strenghten the Indonesian national resilience.
These actions can be done personally, since basically every citizen has an
obligation to strengthen the national resilience.
estimated to throw 0,5 kg garbage per day (Rilawati, 2009). If the population of
Indonesia in 2018 is around 26,5 million people, it is estimated that the existing waste in
urban areas is around 132.500 tons per day. The garbage that can be managed and
entered into the garbage landfill (TPA/Tempat Pembuangan Akhir) is only 63% and only
10% of it can be recycled. The rest 27% is dumped into nature, including rivers and the
sea (Kompas, 2019b). It is not surprising that the waters (seas, rivers, and lakes) in
Indonesia are known as polluted waters.
The increasing Indonesian population also accelerated the flow of urbanization. In
the 2010 cencus, the urbanization rate was 49,8% (Rahayu, 2011). In 2030, it is
estimated that the urbanization rate will be 66,6%. Even in the provinces in Java, the
estimated urbanization wate will reach more than 80% (BPS, 2013). The rapidly
increasing urbanization rate tends to suppress the environmental balance. It is because
the city residents become consumers of goods that are not basic necessities (Yang,
Zhou & Xu, 2014). Moreover, the rapidly increasing urbanization rate also negatively
correlated (-0,41) with the large amount of food waste (The Economist Intelligence Unit,
2017). Urban areas will produce more garbage including food waste. In developing
countries including Indonesia, the amount of waste produced reflects the social status.
Poor people produce more garbage than rich people. When the poverty rate is high in
urban areas, the garbage in big cities is also increasingly mounting. If the issue of waste
is not addressed properly, cities in Indonesia will become seas of garbage and become
polluted areas (Awomeso, Taiwo, Gbadebo & Arimoro, 2010).
Compared with the 1.0 until 3.0 Industrial Revolution era, in the current 4.0
Industrial Revolution the type of garbage is increasingly difficult to decompose. The most
difficult garbage materials to decompose in nature and hazardous are glass and metal.
This two types of garbage can only be decomposed over a period of more than 500
years. In developed countries, the method of dealing with waste is by recycling method
(recycle) and reducting of waste from its source (reduce). In developing countries – such
as Indonesia - the methods used for managing waste are incineration (burning) and
land disposal (just thrown it on the ground) (Awomeso et al., 2010). Of course this
situation will make Indonesia a source of desease area.
Furthermore, discussion about waste also important because it is related with
domestic threats. The threats is the danger of damaging the interest of increasing the
intellectual life of the nation, that impacts in the decline of the younger generation quality
in the health sector. This is because people have the habit of littering and never sorting
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out garbage before being dumped (Awomeso et al., 2010). Younger generation who are
often being sick means the damage of demographic bonus (Strategic Environment
working group team / Tim Pokja Lingkungan Strategis, 2018).
their own opinion (Triandis, 2002). When the residents around throwing garbage
randomly, people are also affected and imitating it. People become accustomed to live in
dirty places. This situation is getting worse because people become accustomed to litter
when they are in dirty environment than in a clean environment (Dur & Vollaard, 2015;
Kolodko, Read & Taj, 2016).
When an environment stays dirty for a long time, it means that the people who live
in the environment are conditioned to have bad behavior of littering their surroundings. It
can be explained through the theory of behaviorism introduced by J.B. Watson, I.P.
Pavlov, B.F. Skinner and E.L. Thorndike. This theory explains that people’s behavior is
formed from conditioning. Moreover, a behavior will be repeated if it brings benefits and
a behavior that causes punishment will be avoided (Franzoi, 2003; Tondok, 2008;
Woolfolk, Winne & Perry, 2006). Therfore, according to the theory of behaviorism, the
littering behavior will continue if there is no sanction. People who litter even actually gets
something good that is free from the trash. When janitors of cleaning officers do not
punish the perpetrators, the behavior of littering will be consideres as behavior that does
not violate the rules. Therefore, the littering behavior will be reduced if the perpetrator is
fined consistently as a punishment.
concept of civic education consists of three aspects, namely the personally responsible
citizen, participatory citizen and justice-oriented citizen (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004).
The personally responsible aspect behavior as a citizen and member of the
community is the will to be responsible for the impact of his/her own behavior. The
responsible behavior is very important and useful to deal with social problems, including
waste problems. This concept is the base of civic education, so that the society have
excellent character and behavior, honest, responsible, and obey the law. The concept
also closely related with cultural values. Several research (Suleman, Simon & Richard,
2015) revealed that behavior is an important predictor for the emergence of one’s
willingness to manage waste, awareness of the adverse effects of waste management
that is not environmentally friendly and the willingness to recycle household waste.
The aspect of citizen participation is the willingness of the members of the society
to participate actively for the improvement of the society. The members of the
community care about their neighbors who live in shortages and participate in cleaning
up their surrounding environment. They also understand the government officers ways of
working and the strategy to finish a project collectively. This concern is very useful for
solving social problems, including the mountainous waste in environment problem.
The justice-oriented aspect is that people will act critically on the government
programs regarding social, political, and aconomic issues. The purpose is to reveal
things that narrate injustice. Citizens also manage social movements to fight for
democracy and how to systematically arrange changes.
The problem related to citizenship education is how to apply it? The application of
the concept of creative citizenship education in daily lige personally is very important.
This is because the behavior of promoting garbage generally tends to be conventional.
The impact is the millenial generation as the future of the Indonesia may be less
interested in being responsible for their own garbage.
The example of creative activities that promoting garbage as an application of the
concept of citizenship edudation in everyday life are as follows :
1. Plogging. Plogging is an activity of jogging for sports while taking the trash
scattered along the roads that are passed. Plogging is a term from Scandinavian
country. Plogging uses a lot of energy. If jogging only needs 235 calories,
plogging can drains up energy to 288 calories for 30 minutes run. It is because in
plogging, one has to run, bend and carrry the trash (Shinta, 2018). Currently,
plogging even become the most favored activity of the millenial generation and
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received remarks as The most 2018 fitness trend in many countries such as the
United States, Australia, ant other countries from Turkey to China (Poon, 2018).
The intrinsic value obtained from this activity is the sense of pride that has
become part of a futuristic activity, namely saving the environment. This plogging
activity contains the responsible behavior aspect from the civic education.
2. Waste Bank. This activity is a follow up of plogging. The garbage obtained is then
deposited at the nearest waste bank. Waste management is only limited to
garbages that are inorganic, non-toxic, and have economic value. This is a
creative activity, since there is not many people who are willing to clean ther
surroundings and then deposit it at the waste bank. In general, people only
deposit their own household trash to the waste bank. The difficulty of this activity
is in promoting the waste. Promoting waste in this case is cleaning, washing,
drying, sorting and packaged neatly for transportation needs to the waste bank.
There can be up to 15 categories of sorting at waste banks. The intrinsic value
obtained from this activity is the formation of diligent behavior, since sorting out
garbages actually needs a lot of time. The collective activity of Waste Bank also
contains the community’s participation aspect as a part of civic education.
3. Detailed planning and implementation for daily food consumption in the family.
This is important to prevent excess food or food waste. Food waste is the amount
of trash produced during the food making process and after consuming the food
activity related to the behavior of the sellers and comsumers (Parfitt, Barthel &
Macnaughton, 2010). Some food waste can still be consumed by reprocess the
excess food and give it to people who need it. This is the basis of social
entrepreneurship activities. Organizations that manage food waste are
Waste4Change and Garda Pangan, managed by millenial generation (Anatasia,
2018; Lestari, 2018). In the United States, the concern for food waste has moved
young generation to make an application named SocialEffort. This application
helps volunteers to save food waste and then give the food to people who need it
(Greeners.co, 2016). The intrinsic value of this activity is the emergence of
altruistic behavior towards others. This activity contains responsible behavior
aspect, participation and also the justice-oriented aspect.
4. 4R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle dan Replace). This is a very popular activity, but
difficult to perform because it is troublesome. It is much easier to use plastic
bags. The example of the 4R behavior that rarely reviewed, considered
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4. Closing
a. Conclusion
Based on the discussion above, there are some important conclusions that should
be noted as follows :
1. A strong national resilience can only be obtained when all citizens care about
their surroundings, including the presence of mountainous waste. This is
because Indonesia is now in an emergency garbage situation. There have
been many regulations produced by the government to control waste, but the
regulations have not been implemented seriously. The community is too
dependent on the government so that the waste phenomenon still threaten
the national resilience. The public awareness to manage their own garbage is
still low.
2. The emergency waste phenomenon can be overcomed by applying
citizenship education in daily life (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). In essence,
the citizenship education is also relevant to other behaviors that strenghten
the national resilience. This is because the civic education strongly
emphasized on the existence of trainings for the citizens to behave
responsibly, honest, obey the law, and care for others in need, active in
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social activities, and dare to voice injustice in society. These behaviors are
the basis for national resilience.
b. Suggestions
National resilience should be strenghtened through civic education, including the
waste management field. In the future, waste management needs to be
addressed, from waste as a burden to waste as beneficial source (Kompas,
2019d). Therefore, in this case, the citizens’ innitiative and creativity for more
clean, healthy and beneficial environment should be supported. To motivate
citizens widely to do real actions in promoting waste is through mass media and
social media. These two media should be more active to spread the virus of
promoting waste behavior. University students as representatives of the millenial
generation should also publish their works for promoting waste in details. The
dissemination of this information is very important to awaken the fact that waste
management is not only the government’s responsibility but also all citizens
responsibility.
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Shinta, A. & Daihani, D.U. (2019). The implementation of creative civic education on
waste management to strengthen national resilience. This paper has been presented in
the 12th International Indonesia Forum Conference with the theme “Rising to the
Occasion: Indonesian Creativity, Ingenuity, and Innovation in a World in Transition”, at
National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, on 26 and 27 June.