It turns out that waste issue is not as simple as I thought before. I throw things that I do not use any longer into the rubbish bin and everything has done. The waste issue can be worse because people’s ‘ignorance’ without care about trash. However, I found enlightenment from the student training held by Stube HEMAT Yogyakarta when I joined the Energy and Environment Program (Training and Exposure). I saw in the brochure that there was an exposure to Gemah Ripah Garbage Bank. Then a question arose in my mind, what kind of waste bank it is? What are the activities? Is it collected waste?
First, I introduce myself, I am Kostansa Hukum, from Aru Islands, studying Management at the Immanuel Christian University. I think that waste management in Aru is not good because many people do not care about the environment by throwing garbage directly into the sea or swamps, which is easily washed away when the tide is high. In Aru, no one wants to buy waste and then resell it. If someone wants to buy trash, it will be a good thing because it can reduce waste in Aru. In general, paper and plastic waste are burned and thrown away, not processed yet into something valuable. Actually, they learned how to make handicrafts from used materials at the elementary and junior high schools, however after they graduated, they did not do it anymore.
From the training, I found that the waste issue is closely related to us because we produce waste every time. At Gemah Ripah Garbage Bank in Bantul, Bambang Suwerda as a resource person, the pioneer of this waste bank, said that this is a movement from the community to manage their waste. There, we identified the types of waste, such as paper, plastic, glass bottles, cans, and iron. By visiting the place directly, I could see that from these various types of waste, I could make money by selling waste according to its types and creatively recycling waste into many products such as, key chains, flower pots, clothes, and other ones. From the experience I discovered new things that I just found out that garbage has a bank, garbage can make money by recycling, even one used plastic bottle can be divided into 3 types of waste, such as cap, label, and the bottle itself. Next, I looked back how the cleanliness of my boarding house, every room has a trash bin but the residents do not care and let the garbage pile up. This is my challenge to be an example and invite my boardingmate to manage waste better.
I hope this article can add information and experience for readers, and we can start implementing the proper way of disposing garbage and keeping the place and environment clean. I will share with others my experience gained in the Stube HEMAT how to manage and reduce it. ***
Nutrition sufficiency and public health depend on the quality of consumption. The globalization era led to changes in lifestyle and diet so that Indonesian people face multiple nutritional problems. On one hand, malnutrition problems are generally caused by poverty, lack of food supplies, or low understanding of nutrition. On the other hand, they can be ignited by an economic factor at certain levels of society but not balanced with knowledge about nutrition with a balanced menu, so they ignore their consumption to fulfill their desires. People daily consumption tend to consume risky foods for their health, such as high levels of sugar, salt, and fat and minimal elements of vegetables and fruit.
This consumption pattern also threatens students during the pandemic because many online activities from boarding houses or homes so outdoor activities are reduced. The phenomenon that occurs is that the longer people are in a pandemic situation, the level of 'laziness' or lazy to move is increasing. Indirectly, this condition affects careless eating patterns, irregular rest time, and inappropriate nutritional intake for the body's needs. Students frequently complain of stomach pain, acid reflux, obesity, and malnutrition.
Understanding healthy living behavior by paying attention to consumption patterns is a crucial point to know. In the Energy and Environment program: Responsible consumption and production, Stube HEMAT Yogyakarta initiated the discussion activity 'Revealing consumption patterns of young people, physical activity and obesity during a pandemic' with Ir. Ferry Fredy Karwur, M.Sc., Ph.D., as the resource person. The discussion participants were students with various study backgrounds, from Education, Governance, Engineering, Management, Communication, and Theology, they found enlightenment and enrichment of knowledge related to consumption patterns of young people (5/3/2022) at Wisma Pojok Indah, Condongcatur. He started the session with exercise to campaign the importance of the body burning fat and morning sun exposure. This outdoor activity made participants feel tired, and relaxed body, some were sweating and some did not. He revealed that the pandemic made students fall asleep in the room without activity and neglected nutritional intake. The current health threat is that food tends to contain high sugar. Hence, the accumulation of glucose in the body potentially causes health problems from obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
The data on cases of death due to Covid-19 are dominated by those over 46 years of age. From other data, patients dying from Covid-19 accompanied by comorbidities, hypertension, diabetes, heart, kidney, and lungs are in the top five highest cases. It seems that the younger age group is more 'safe' from the impact of being exposed to Covid-19, but keep in mind that comorbidities that aggravate Covid-19 cases are diseases caused by the accumulation of someone's unhealthy lifestyle. So, if someone cannot manage nutritional intake and a healthy lifestyle since young, degenerative diseases will attack.
One threat that cannot be considered 'trivial' is obesity among young people, which is influenced by age, eating in excessive portions, wrong consumption patterns such as eating out of meal times, minimum physical activity, heredity, disturbances in the body's heat production due to wrong sleep patterns due to being more active in cyberspace, also due to increased stress.
The Director of Stube HEMAT said, "After getting new knowledge of controlling a quality lifestyle, you should start making changes as a sign that you all have learned." In closing the discussion, the participants stated that this training made their understanding more open and observant to the reality of observing every daily behavior and attitude in terms of more responsible consumption and production.***