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Have you ever come across “Florida Man” news? Well, they’re pretty infamous and there’s even an account on Twitter X that compiles such headlines. Here are some examples:

🐊 Florida Man charged with assault with a deadly weapon after throwing alligator through Wendy’s drive-thru window (Washington Post, 2016)

🚑 Florida Man gets tired of waiting at hospital, steals ambulance, drives home (Tampa Bay Times, 2018)

🐹 Florida man arrested after trying to cross Atlantic in hamster wheel vessel (BBC, 2023)

Pretty trashy right? Well, believe it or not, in this issue we’ll be covering an even trashier topic: waste management, starting with organic in particular.

🗑️ Demystifying Waste Management

🚮 Overall, Southeast Asia generates over 150M tons of waste per year and this figure is expected to double by 2030, due to high rates of both population growth and urbanization rates (ASEAN, 2020). For reference, this is about the equivalent weight of 1,500 cruise ships ⛴️ (What Things Weigh, 2020)!

🌏 It’s important to note that there are large intra-regional differences across countries in ASEAN: Indonesia generates over 40% of the waste in Southeast Asia, while Singapore generates the most per capita at 6x the regional average (UNEP, 2017).

📊 All kinds of waste are generated: as consumers, we are most familiar with packaging and food waste, but there’s also e-waste, hazardous waste material, etc. Generally, waste is split into organic vis-a-vis inorganic. Overall, over half of the waste in Southeast Asia is organic, though it ranges by country quite a bit; for instance, Singapore only generates about 10% of organic waste while for Myanmar it’s around 75% (UNEP, 2017). For the purposes of this newsletter, we will focus on organic waste and tackle inorganic waste next week.

🤔 Hang on, isn’t waste management an environmental problem, not a climate one?

✌🏻 Actually it’s both! While of course improper waste management causes all sorts of environmental degradation ranging from clogged river systems with polluted water, to destruction of local flora & fauna habitats, organic waste is actually a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly via methane. Moreover, there’s a linkage between this issue and our first issue, Air Pollution, from last week: one of the major sources of air pollution in Indonesia (and Southeast Asia more broadly) is actually from open waste burning (Waste4Change, 2023).

🧐 Wait, methane? That doesn’t sound like carbon, what’s up with that?

⚛️ Methane (CH₄) is a colorless gas that consists of 1 carbon and 4 hydrogen atoms. Generally-speaking, in the GHG hierarchy: the more complex of a chemical structure a compound has, the more heat it traps (NIH, 2023). This is indeed true with CH₄, which is over 84 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide! CH₄ is also highly flammable and can cause major combustions when ignited (GHGSat, 2023).

You may have heard that agricultural production—specifically 🐄 cattle raising* and 🌾 rice cultivation—are major sources of methane emissions, but did you know that improper waste management is also a major source of methane emissions?

♨️ Methane is released specifically when organic waste (think food scraps and other biomass) decomposes; roughly 1 ton of organic waste creates 50kg methane gas (Indonesian Ministry of Environment, 2021). The issue is compounded if organic and inorganic waste is comingled in a landfill because the methane gas can get trapped and then build up, which can lead to explosions!

*especially cow burps (NASA, 2023)

🤯 Oh no, explosions!? Is it really that bad?

💥Bantar Gebang, Southeast Asia’s largest landfill located in Indonesia, has experienced several explosions and fires over the years (CNN, 2021; Oke News, 2011). Indeed, Bantar Gebang is the largest source of methane emissions of any landfill in the world (GHGSat, 2023). The combustive property of CH₄ is actually what makes it possible for waste to be part of the solution by being captured and utilized as a means of generating electricity (Drawdown, 2017). This is in fact already a reality in the region, as it’s being done in Singapore across five waste-to-energy (WTE) plants (ASEAN, 2020). If Bantar Gebang’s methane emissions were harnessed appropriately, they could have powered over 400K homes for a year (GHGSat, 2023)! Talk about a waste of energy!

🛑 While WTE is a decent solution, it can entail other sorts of emissions, so it’s more of a transitory solution. The better long-term solution is actually to eliminate the organic waste that leads to methane emissions before it even gets into landfills to begin with.

🍔 In spite of Singapore’s leading WTE capacity, they too recognize the importance of reducing organic waste upstream and have launched a “Food Waste Reduction programme” along with the Singapore Food Agency (SG101, 2021). We’re glad to hear that they are tackling this upstream, since this is a problem that is quite near-and-dear to our hearts: over the past year, Massimiliano worked closely with the pioneering Kenyan AgriTech startup, Farm to Feed, which tackles food waste & loss!

📚 Further reading

We’d recommend these resources in case you’d like to learn more about the issue at hand:

1. Solving the Waste Management Problem in ASEAN (ASEAN)

2. Waste Management in ASEAN Countries (UNEP)

Now that we have a bit of background on the topic, let’s shift gears towards recent news!

📢 Shout-out to Rekosistem!

🚀 We’d first like to give a shout-out to Rekosistem—an Indonesian Climate-Tech Startup tackling waste management—for raising $5M in a Series A round last month from East Ventures, Skystar, and Bali Investment Club (e27, 8 August 2023). So far, they’ve managed to recycle & process over 10K tonnes of waste and aim to scale this capacity to 20K tonnes per month in the next couple of years. Congrats to the co-founders, Ernest & Joshua!

🗞️ Recent News

👍🏻 Good News

🪰 Ento raised funding to expand food waste upcycling with black soldier flies (TechInAsia, 3 July 2023)

🌏 Blue Planet raised capital to scale their waste collection, transportation, segregation, processing, and treatment services (e27, 11 August 2023).

🚮 Thailand recently unveiled a “Bio-Circular Green Economy” plan that aims to significantly reduce waste holistically across multiple sectors, including agriculture, manufacturing, etc. (Fulcrum, 3 May 2023)

👎🏻 Bad News

🌫️ Landfill fires are spreading harmful emissions across Thai provinces (360 Waste, 14 March 2023)

👃🏻 Vietnam woman was forced to publicly apologize for complaining about the stench of a nearby landfill (VNExpress, 26 July 2023)

🏝️ Singapore’s only landfill on Semakau island, “Garbage of Eden”, is running out space (SMCP, 28 July 2023)

🔥 Indonesia fire burns 15 hectares of Sarimukti landfill near Bandung (Jakarta Post 5 August 2023)

📢 Other Voices

⚡ Southeast Asia looks to its growing piles of trash as a new energy source (Nikkei Asia, 23 July 2023)

👷🏻 In pictures: Life on Southeast Asia’s largest landfill (Eco Business, 4 Jan 2023)

Next up, we highlight a founder’s voice…

🎙️ Interview with Fauzal of Sampangan

💡 Why were you initially inspired to tackle the waste management issue?

🌟 Witnessing my father, Dr. Ishenny, co-founder and chief scientist of Sampangan, at work led me to Bantar Gebang—Indonesia's largest landfill, with trash mounds as tall as 15-story buildings spanning 200 football fields. This staggering sight ignited my curiosity about the waste management industry, emphasizing the pressing need for solutions in Indonesia.

🛠️ How exactly is Sampangan solving it?

♻️ Sampangan holistically converts all waste (mixed organic, non-organic, etc.) into high-value products using our proprietary process: the “Magic Box” carbonization technology.

♨️ It works like an oven / rice cooker, heating up the waste biomass input, and utilizing the material as energy source-syngas, not electrical nor external fuel. Different types of material (i.e. organic, plastic, glass, metal, etc.) have different reactions to high temperature exposure. With the “Magic Box”, we are able to convert it back to its original form: organic to activated carbon, plastic to crude oil, etc.

The products that come out of this process have valuable applications:

1. ⚫ Activated carbon: used in regenerative agriculture, water treatment, poultry, cosmetics, healthcare, etc.

2. 🌫️ Hydrolyzed liquid smoke: used in bio-disinfectant, poultry, agriculture as biopesticide, water treatment, etc.

3. 🌾 Liquid Carbon Biofertilizer: rich in mineral used as biofertilizer in agriculture

⚙️ At its core, our solutions leverage technology design principles from biochemical engineering, with a focus on efficiency and high output value conversion as a starting point; we then combine these with mechanical, electrical and software engineering approaches to optimize waste to value creation.

❌ What are some misconceptions about waste management that you’d like readers to know?

1. 🚮 Only 10% of plastic is recycled in Indonesia (NPAP Indonesia, 2021)

2. 🪫 The state government budget for the environment office averages only only 2%

3. 🚛 On average in Indonesia, only about 30% of waste created is collected by the government and sent to landfills, the rest is discarded in open dumps, burned, etc. Yes, the overcapacity landfills across Indonesia, represent only a third of all generated waste!

🎬 What actions can readers take now to support your cause?

1. 🧠 Be conscious with who you buy from and support brands that are leveraging Zero Waste / Circularity principles; we need to educate ourselves with companies that are doing genuine work vs greenwashing.

2. 📢 Be active on social media to promote sustainable products and zero waste practices. Vote with your money. Company’s are influenced by their customers purchases, so if enough masses influence them, they can be more sustainable in their business practices and value chain.

3. 🚛 Ask your waste collectors / trucks where they are throwing their trash. You would be surprised how much actually goes to illegal dumping sites that have zero processing!

4. 🏠 Ask your real estate management or community leadership to use sustainable waste processing services.

🦸🏻 What do you do when you’re not saving the world?

🧑🏻‍🍼 Play with my 3 year-old daughter. She is the reason that I do what I do. Her dad and grandad are tackling these issues so that she can live in a better world when we are gone.

🤯 We actually had the pleasure of visiting Sampangan’s operations in Bekasi a couple of weeks ago and were blown away by the entire process.

🙌🏻 Shout-out to Fauzal and Dr. Ishenny for hosting us! You can see more footage on our Instagram here.

🙏🏻 Thanks for reading our 2nd issue of Climate starts with SEA🌏!

⏭️ In the meantime, stay tuned for our 3rd issue next weekend, which will feature a continuation of this problem, albeit covering inorganic waste—with a focus on plastic in particular… You’ll soon discover that—to quote Aqua’s 1997 hit single “Barbie Girl”—perhaps life in plastic isn’t so fantastic after all.

Did you enjoy this week’s issue? If yes, please do forward to your friends who would enjoy the read as well. Also, feel free to let us know what you thought by giving us feedback at [email protected].

🌊 SEA you next week!

Karina & Massimiliano