Monash and CSIRO partnership tackles plastic waste to revitalise Indonesia's Citarum River

CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, Monash University (co-led by Monash Art, Design and Architecture and Monash Sustainable Development Institute) and Indonesian partners, Universitas Indonesia and Universitas Padjadjaran, are working with local governments and communities to develop and implement a waste monitoring program that will benefit both the environment and people of the Citarum River, West Java.

With a two-year funding commitment from CSIRO’s Indo-Pacific Plastics Innovation Network, the interdisciplinary Citrarum program collaboration will generate evidence to spread their community-based, zero-waste solutions from the pilot to other priority villages.

Every day 20,000 tonnes of solid waste, including plastics, food, crop and livestock waste, and 340,000 tonnes of waste water are discharged into the Citarum river from over 600 villages that lack access to basic waste and sanitation services.

The next phase of the Citarum program’s work builds on the productive partnership between CSIRO, Monash and Universitas Indonesia, as well as the program’s many research insights.

The partners will co-develop and implement a plastics waste pilot as part of a waste recovery facility to be constructed by West Java Government in 2023, and implement a waste debris monitoring program that creates a rigorous baseline for comparative evaluations of the zero-waste pilot post construction.

Senior Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO, Denise Hardesty commented,

“CSIRO is building on our previous work with the Monash team and the Citarum project. It is a great example of what can happen when we’re able to bring together the skills, talent, knowledge and approaches from multiple organisations to identify and enact timely, meaningful change on the ground, where it is needed.

Growing the work with the teams in Indonesia and ensuring the outcomes of the project will meet the goals identified by Indonesia, along the Citarum river and with those communities is critical. We’re looking forward to working closely with our partners to meet their goals and to support cleaner communities where economic benefits are retained locally.”

Monash is looking forward to working with its partners to create real change. The Citarum Research Action Platform recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the West Java Government.

Program Manager, Jane Holden said, "This has paved the way for a five-year collaboration with research partners, local communities, government and industry, in a type of living laboratory or place-based approach that will address river and environmental pollution. Only through shared innovation and learning can we create, test and evaluate integrated approaches to abate waste leakage from communities without access to waste infrastructure, and inform future investment."

Not only will the knowledge from this project inform strategies for addressing river pollution in the Citarum basin, it will also help other degraded rivers in Southeast Asia, improving the environment and the lives of many communities who depend on rivers for their source of water and livelihoods.

The Indo-Pacific Plastics Innovation Network is part of CSIRO’s Ending Plastic Waste Mission, which has a goal of an 80 per cent reduction in plastic waste entering the Australian environment by 2030.

Read more information on the Citarum Action Research Program