Zero Waste Production in Small and Medium Industrial Cluster

Collaboration project between Chalmers University of Technology Sweden and Gadjah Mada University Indonesia in Mondialogo Engineering Award 2009

By: Muhammad Mufti Azis (Chalmers Students for Sustainability (CSS) Sweden)

Background

Sustainability has emerged as a global issue as UNESCO declared this decade (2005-2014) as United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.  For this purpose it is obvious that global partnership, for instance between developed and developing countries, is needed to achieve sustainability.  My recent project exemplifies how developed countries could play important role to rear developing countries to achieve sustainable development. 

It goes far to a small village called Samigaluh which situated on the slope of Menoreh Mountain, Yogyakarta, Indonesia where local people still depends on agriculture producesto support the livelihood.  Fortunately, from the land of this small village grows various plants i.e. cloves, patchouli, vanillin, tea, cocoa, herbal and woods which later arises as a local potential to drive the local economic wheel.  Essential oil distillation has grown as a prominent home industry in Samigaluh village.  Unfortunately, essential oil production is only performed during dry season for the sake of high yield.  Therefore, local villagers contacted academia from Gadjah Mada University to help them solving this problem.

Figure 1. Portrait of Samigaluh village, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

(Courtesy from Chain Centre, Chem. Eng. Dept. Gadjah Mada University)

Integration Concept

Given the situation in Samigaluh village eventually it was concluded that it is interesting to integrate essential oil industry with tofu home industry (pabrik tahu) and animal husbandry i.e cows and goats.  Why Tofu and cows? Tofu is a healthy meal and highly consumed by people in Indonesia.  Therefore, its production will have economic value and furthermore to suffice protein supply for villagers.  In addition, raw material to produce tofu i.e. soybean is not difficult to find in Samigaluh and the left over (unprocessed soya) is useful to feed cows. 

Cows and goats husbandry is carried out in a pen house which later produces meat and dairy products.  Furthermore, cow/goat manure is transferred into a biodigester mixed with liquid waste from tofu factory producing biogas.  The biogas is not only used to produce steam for essential oil industries but also for tofu production and household usage.  The waste from essential oil industry in form of condensed water (warm water of about 70^oC) is sent to local fish pond to support fish production.  Therefore this concept is so called “Zero Waste Production”.  Figure 2 will show the grand design of the concept.

Figure 2. Grand design of Zero Waste Production in Samigaluh village

(Courtesy from Chain Centre, Chem. Eng. Dept. Gadjah Mada University)

Mondialogo Engineering Award 2009

It was an initiative from Daimler and UNESCO to establish an award called Mondialogo (this year 2009 is the third round, please check for detail: www.mondialogo.org)).  The theme of the proposed project should be in line with UN Millennium Development Goal and the interesting thing is the team should be a collaboration team between developed and developing country.  It is so fortunate that my colleagues from CSS are so enthusiastic to work together with students from Gadjah Mada University to accomplish this project.  Sweden has grown as one of leading country in biogas production and has put a lot of concern regarding Sustainable Development issue.  Therefore, it would be interesting to invite Swedish colleagues to get involved in this project and also it would be important for them to implement sustainability idea into real practice in such a developing country, Indonesia.  Likewise, students from Gadjah Mada University could learn many things from their partners and help out villagers to develop the Zero Waste Production concept. 

The team members from Chalmers are Marcus Högberg, Linus Helming, Martin Persson,Johan Toren and myself.  All of us are still member of CSS and have been working together in Sustainability issue since 2007.  It is so fortunate that we had received an official support from Chalmers Vice President, John Holmberg, to participate in this competition.  Likewise, our partner from Gadjah Mada University (which consists of Annisa Utami, Annisa Sekar Palupi, Benny Chan and Awqi Gibran) continually update the recent information from the site to us and ready to work together in an international atmosphere.

Figure 3. Collaboration team between Chalmers and Gadjah Mada University

Despite of the reality that we are facebook and youtube generation, it doesn’t mean we can’t do anything for our single earth.  Instead, it’s time for students to act together to create sustainable world.  At least this is the message from last S3 WSCSD conference in Regina Canada.  It was so impressive and memorizing that I could meet so many WSCSD colleagues from all over the world.  Last but not least, I do hope my current activity may inspire all WSCSD colleagues and feel free to contact us if you have any suggestions.