The gift of knowledge from EcoBali

Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house, learnings were shared, so many we’ve lost count.

We spent a wonderful few days with EcoBali in the run up to Christmas, a fantastic organisation who are also a collection partner of CleanHub. They have established a sizeable operation in Bali and have lots of insight that we soaked up on our visit.

EcoBali was founded in 2006, as Bali was experiencing ever increasing numbers of foreign visitors. It was clear to the founders that a waste management solution was urgently required to deal with the sky-rocketing amount of waste being produced every day.

Their Vision is to create a zero waste reality. Through promotion of responsible waste management, creation of green knowledge and eco products, the team’s Mission is all about achieving this zero waste ecosystem. The team is made up of people from all sorts of backgrounds, including those experienced in waste management and educational programs as well as product designers and marketing experts.

We visited the team at their sorting and material recovery facility (MRF) in Canggu. Their operation processes more than 500 tonnes of waste each year - saving vast amounts of plastic from landfill and enabling large scale composting. Anything that’s left over is of course sent to responsibly managed landfills. The team have been working with Cleanhub for just over a year and their partnership has enabled them to send even less waste to landfill and also reach new, more remote areas across Bali. EcoBali share many of our own values - the creation of a circular economic model is vital in their vision for success. They’re creating jobs, educating local students and engaging the residents and businesses of Bali to not only recycle more, but also reduce the amount of waste produced in the first place.

We spent the week absorbing the expertise of Paola Cannucciari, program manager with the initiative. She shared details about their programme - how they collect waste every day from households, waste banks and businesses, how they process this waste and unlock value. A great example is how they use collected cardboard to wrap their bales of waste. Insight like this will help us become more efficient in our own operation and we can’t wait to get back to Manado in the New Year and put some of these learnings into practice.