Putra Fajar Alam: Creating Digital Waste Bank

KOMPAS/ICHWAN SUSANTO

Putra Fajar Alam

Starting with his concern over piles of garbage under a bridge near his campus, the Telkom Institute of Technology (now Telkom University), Bandung, Putra Fajar Alam, 28, wanted to contribute to helping Indonesia be waste-free by 2025. Through his capabilities in the field of information systems, Putra has created various applications that make it easier for waste banks and customers, government administrations and companies to manage waste.

His appearance was neat but relaxed. Under his dark gray suit, Putra wore a Smash shirt when we met on Monday (12/03/2018). The letter “A” was on the shirt was in the shape of a recycling symbol.

He shared his views on the sidelines of the National Bank Coordination Meeting, where he spoke in front of 800 participants on Monday (3/12) in Jakarta. Putra was asked to talk about Smash, which is an online waste bank management system that he introduced in 2015.

Working in and dealing with issues related to garbage was no accident for him. While pursuing a Master\'s degree at ITB, he was asked to assist his father with his garbage bank in Pangkalan Bun, Central Kalimantan.

His father, who had partnered with the local environment office, had learned about setting up a garbage bank in Pangkalan Bun from Bambang Suwerda, the inventor of the garbage bank from Bantul, Yogyakarta. From what he learned during the meeting, he became interested in focusing on a garbage bank, which was actually simple. The waste was sorted and then handed over as savings.

The difference between garbage banks and financial banks is that customer’s deposits are in the form of garbage. Garbage, which customers sort into plastic, paper, cardboard, metal and glass before depositing, is weighed to be rated nominal.

Regarding sorting, when he was on a committee at an organization on his campus, he once collected mineral water bottles and sold them to bigger players. “From our estimation, we could collect Rp 300,000 to Rp 400,000. But in fact, we got only Rp 70,000, even though we collected a lot from the 2,000 students,” he said.

The garbage that is deposited with the collector is usually in large volume. Through the waste bank, people are registered as customers who then get savings from the sale of garbage. The savings vary depending on the characteristics of the waste bank. Some waste banks have introduced Idul Fitri savings, school savings, vacation savings and as payments for medical expenses.

This is really interesting. “How could waste become savings?” he said. This inspired him to create a system that facilitates transactions in this garbage bank by digitizing (online). He then conducted a survey related to waste banks and their potential.

Long-lived

The distribution of customers and waste banks throughout Indonesia could become a reference for all. With is in mind, he wanted to create a startup business that was sustainable.

“If you have problems and solutions but have no long-term vision, the startup business will not be sustainable,” he said.

He saw Indonesia\'s commitment to be waste free by 2025 as a promising vision for its business. From this interest, he thought of digitizing and monetizing financial transactions from every sale to a waste bank. Finally, he built a web-based and Android application for banksampah.id for garbage banks.

This system is now followed by 1,318 waste banks in 32 provinces out of 5,244 garbage banks throughout Indonesia. Through the application, which can be downloaded for free, garbage banks can register online. In addition, the feature is integrated nationally and shows the reduction of waste from residents who usually end up in the final processing site (TPA) or scattered in the environment.

Not satisfied with only providing an application for waste bank managers, he also thought of facilitating residents or customers who wanted to sell sorted waste. In 2016, he developed the mySmash application for residents.

This Smash-pay is a "white label" from T-money, a Telkom financial technology product that is guaranteed because it is registered with the Financial Services Authority and Bank Indonesia. The advantage is that customers can use the digital money to pay electricity bills and BPJS health premiums.

So where does Smash get revenue if the application is free and people do not have to subscribe? Putra said Smash received 1.8 percent of every digital transaction. At present, transactions average Rp 12 million per month. He said there was still a lot of work to do because the potential for transactions was estimated at Rp 3.1 billion per month.

While waiting for the garbage bank and Smash members, he expanded his wings of innovation by making smart drop boxes to accommodate certain garbage. Currently, it works with Da-none-Aqua to build 80 drop boxes, five of which have been installed at modern retailer outlets in Jakarta.

People can throw plastic bottles into a drop box with the help of the mySmash application. Each Aqua bottle, no matter what size, is valued at Rp 60. Digital money will be included in the T-cash balance managed by Telkomsel. The hardware internet of things (IOT) research was funded by Telkomsel.

He also made another breakthrough by building a new e-Smash, launched some time ago in Bandung. This application helps local governments monitor the performance of waste banks and calculate waste reduction and management.

For the city of Bandung, the e-Smash service is provided free of charge to assist local administrations register waste. This application is required to be used by banks until garbage banks are built at the sub-district level. From this application, local administrations can easily monitor the activity of waste banks.

Putra Fajar Alam

Born: Banjarmasin, Feb. 3,. 1990

Father: Mayor Supriyanto (54)

Mother: Rahmah (50)

Education:

- S-1 Telkom Institute of Technology (2008-2012)

- S-2 Bandung Institute of Technology (2013-2016)

Career:

Teacher at Telkom University in Bandung

Work:

- Smart Drop Box (2018)

- mySmash App (2016)

- www.smash.id (2015) app

Intellectual Property Rights:

- Application of Prognosis Information to know Food Availability (2017)

- Trade Mark “Smash” (2017)

- Web app for Cikapundung River (2017)

- Application of Digital Election “web” Maroon

Awards:

- Finalist in National Make IT Asia 2018 Impact Hub Jakarta

- Finalist in Indonesian Innovation 2018 Telkom Cloud

- Finalist for Young Entrepreneurship in 2017 by Bank Mandiri

- Winner of National Innovation & Collaboration Development 2016, The Asia Foundatio