Team members
Almira Zulfikar
Co-founder & COO
Bintang Heru
CFO
Plastic Pollution Challenge
The issue we prioritise in tackling the waste crisis is the staggering usage of single-use packaging especially plastic packaging. The pandemic has shifted Indonesia’s lifestyle from offline to online purchases to accommodate basic and subsidiary needs. With deliveries becoming more common, it is expected that excessive plastic packaging (44,8% increase) will push waste issues to an even more critical point, thus branding Indonesia as the second largest contributor of plastic waste.
In the villages most locals rely on farming as their primary source of income. In some instances, this practice is still precarious, labour intensive and gender specific. Here, most of their income is still below the regional’s minimum wage threshold. Accordingly, we work closely with smallholder farmers and other communities at risk, to generate an alternative means of revenue, increase their economic resilience and increase their capacity. Both environmental and socio-economic issues are detrimental for us to tackle for a more sustainable and circular future as they all go hand in hand.
Plépah creates biodegradable packaging as a solution to the post-consumer waste problem. In developing alternative solutions we prioritise locally-sourced material as well as existing skills and tools. Plépah sustainable products is an NTFP solution aiming to provide alternatives or replace demand for single-use materials and alleviate further environmental burden through excessive non-perishable waste.
Solution
Plépah provides bio-degradable and carbon neutral packaging. Our first packaging products are 100% natural made from Areca Palm leaf sheath. They biodegrade within 60 days and are compostable. They are food grade, water resistant, can be put in the microwave, oven and freezer. We provided the community with affordable technology to process the material into quality products. We custom design the technology in accordance to the needs; scale and material. We adopted a decentralised ‘Micro Manufacturing’ concept which uses modular and compact technology. These design systems simplify and speed up the maintenance process with parts that are readily available and allows the community to assemble and easily maintain the machinery. This appropriated-scale design allows the system to be more flexible, adaptive and in accordance with the capacities of the local communities.
We focus on community empowerment and use various research methods to produce insights and solutions for a greater impact. By strengthening the community capacity our solution generates economic security within the village for a resilient economy and promotes a sustainable business scheme.
Contact
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