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CircularJourney

Southeast Asia — 2027

Indonesia

Indonesia has built one of the most widely replicated community recovery models in the world, the bank sampah, alongside the logistical problem of running waste systems across thousands of inhabited islands.
Research plannedOn the roadmap. Host organizations are being approached.

Research question

What makes a community waste bank keep working after the grant ends, and what makes one close?

Written before the mission, and published unchanged. Findings are assessed against this question rather than the question being rewritten to fit the findings.

Research scope

Community waste banks and archipelagic logistics

What we want to understand

  1. 01The actual economics of a waste bank: what it pays members, and what it costs to run.
  2. 02Why some waste banks persist for a decade and others close within two years.
  3. 03How material is moved and aggregated across islands, and what that costs.
  4. 04What role local government plays, and whether that role is the deciding factor.
  5. 05Whether the model depends on a particular density of housing or social organisation.
Region
Southeast Asia
Research lens
02 · Peer countriesWhat are countries facing comparable challenges doing differently?
Research theme
Community-led recovery at national scale
Field research
Planned for 2027
Framework themes
citizen behaviourcircular business modelscollectionplasticeconomicsscalabilityindia applicability
Relevant SDGs
SDG 11SDG 12SDG 14

Cities

Indonesia

Jakarta

Dense, flood-prone and served by a mix of municipal collection and community waste banks operating at neighbourhood scale.

Research planned
Indonesia

Surabaya

Frequently cited for community composting and waste bank density, which makes it the right place to test whether the reputation holds up.

Research planned

Missions

CJ-2027-IDResearch planned

Indonesia: what keeps a waste bank open

Built specifically to study durability rather than launch. We want to meet waste banks that closed, not only ones that are still open.

Reached: Travel (1/10)Mid 2027

Findings

No findings yet

Field research in Indonesia is research planned. This section stays empty until there is something we have actually seen. The questions above are what we will be asking.

What India could take from Indonesia

Assessment pending

Any judgement about transfer to India would be speculation until the system has been seen working, and its costs and dependencies understood. Anything published here will be labelled as a proposal until a pilot reports.

What Indonesia could take from India

Nothing has been researched yet, so nothing is claimed. These are the parts of India’s experience we expect to be worth putting in front of practitioners here, and what we will ask them about.

  • Municipal segregation programmes maintained over a decade, not a launch year.
  • Material recovery economics at a scale that makes aggregation viable.
  • Experience of integrating waste-picker cooperatives into municipal contracts.

Read the reasoning on why this is a two-way journey.

Case studies

SurabayaPlanned

Bank Sampah: community waste banks in Indonesia

Neighbourhood-level collection points where households deposit sorted recyclables and are credited for them, often through a savings account. Widely replicated internationally, with highly variable survival rates.

plasticpackagingmunicipal solid waste

Film and clips

Notices

Organizations and experts

Directory not yet open

We list an organization only once it has agreed to a public listing, and a person only with their consent. Outreach for this mission is under way; entries appear here as permissions come back.Take part