Waste sadaqah: a new community-based waste management practice in Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Waste management is one of the most important environmental and public health issues of the 21st century. In Indonesia, the trend in waste management has changed from a government-led to a community-driven social activity, which significantly manages household-solid waste and positively affects the environment. Additionally, waste management supports the circular economy (CE), a topic that many scholars and policymakers are now debating. Waste sadaqah (WS) is a community-based waste-management movement that seeks to achieve economic empowerment through social action. This Brief Report describes how WS contributes to waste handling and how the community engages in social actions that affect the environment and advance CE practices. The focus of our data collection and analysis was the province of Yogyakarta, a well-known region on the Indonesian island of Java. This study reports participant observations and casual discussions with the founders. To capture photographic evidence to support the interview findings, we supplemented the study with a field survey. To highlight WS practices, we applied the perspectives of community theory, social capital, social action, and empowerment theory. We found evidence that this practice is distinct from other modes of community-based waste management.