BINUS SCHOOL Simprug Students Initiative to Recycle Banner Waste for the Needs of School Children in Sumba, NTT

Banners are among the most widely used materials for campaigns, promotions, and marketing. The properties of particle plastic in making banners that are strong, light, and easy to process make it an essential raw material for people worldwide in various aspects of life, for shopping bags, product packaging, household furniture, and many others. However, with these advantages, plastic is also a complex material and takes tens to hundreds of years to decompose. Plastic waste in the form of banners that continues to pile up will have a harmful impact on the environment unless tangible steps are taken to deal with it.

This phenomenon attracted the attention of BINUS SCHOOL Simprug student – Kenneth William Santoso, especially because every day, on his way to and from school, many billboard banners are displayed on the streets, which will be wasted and add to piles of plastic waste.

Following up on this, Kenneth took the initiative to create the “R3US3D” project, which reuses billboard banner waste into products that can be used in everyday life, such as school bags, lunch bags, laptop covers, shopping bags, and even motor vehicle covers.

This project began with an effort to find and collect unused banners from malls, universities, and several party offices. After being sorted and cleaned, the banners are cut according to the pattern and ready for production. Kenneth’s production team consists of street tailors and small-scale craftsmen experiencing declining production demand. They can produce from their homes, making it easier for all parties and reducing production costs.

“The products produced are focused on various forms of bags for basic needs. Apart from that, school bags are also needed for children in remote areas to go to school and carry daily items.” said Kenneth.

As the club’s founder, Kenneth has a vision to focus this club on education and all aspects that support school activities. Of course, the “R3US3D” project will continue to complement the activities of the “Bersama Untuk Bangsa” club.

“In the future, R3US3D can collaborate as much as possible with suppliers of banner, billboard, and plastic packaging waste so that it can be recycled and repurposed into useful items. Collaboration is also on the agenda by collaborating with more MSMEs in Indonesia to develop product types and use other recycled materials such as sacks, batik scraps, or other packaging. “Apart from that, there will also be a collaboration with NGOs which can help distribute it to many regions in Indonesia so that the activities we carry out have an impact and are felt by many people,” concluded Kenneth in closing.