Bank Negara Indonesia

Collect, save, earn and advance circularity – A collaborative model for circularity

The ”Ayo Menabung Dengan Sampah” (“Let’s Save Waste”) programme, an initiative by Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), aims to address the plastic waste challenge in the country by incentivising individuals, households, and communities to collect and segregate plastic waste in exchange for cash deposited through a BNI savings account.

This programme formalises a waste collection and exchange system that encourages positive behaviour towards waste segregation and minimisation of plastic pollution. It seeks to achieve a healthier natural environment by preventing plastic and waste pollution while empowering local communities and individuals by fostering economic benefits for those participating in the programme. While the programme relies on waste collected from individuals, households, and institutions, it is also supported by other critical stakeholders to realise its objectives.

Community members – students, households, and other residents – are responsible for segregating the waste and sending it to the recycling bank for further processing. To ensure efficiency in the waste management process, BNI also partners with waste banks to collect the segregated plastic waste and facilitate the exchange for money that is credited to the individual’s BNI savings account. Further support comes from the local government, which acts as an intermediary between the plastic collected at the household level and the institutional buyers.

The programme has involved over 250 schools, 150 waste banks, and almost 200,000 individuals, accumulating savings of more than one billion Indonesian Rupiah – and annually mitigated a total of 300,000 kilograms of plastic from being leaked out of the economy, instead collected for re-circulation within the system.