[FREE REPORT]

SEMARANG MAYOR GREEN CITY PROGRAM

Reported by: Amama Ira Amalia Priyono

According to the Mayor of Semarang, Hendrar Prihadi, who said that one of the manifestations of Green Politics that was carried out by his party was related to waste management and control. Semarang is always under threat of tidal flooding which is not only caused by natural conditions, but also how it behaves in protecting the environment. One of them is waste management. Every year, the volume of waste processed by his party continues to increase. From 850 tons of waste per day in 2018, now the volume has increased to 1200 tons of waste per day. 62 percent of the waste is organic waste. And the rest is inorganic like plastic. All of the waste is processed at TPA Jatibarang, Semarang.

By implementing “The Water Front City” policy, which means keeping the river clean from rubbish is one of the things to strive for waste control. This is supported by issuing regulations on controlling the use of plastics. He also showed a photo about how different rivers in Semarang before and after the policy. As well as a picture of a mosque located on the edge of the Mberok river, Semarang City, before and after the policy was implemented. Meanwhile, for waste management, by making efforts to process waste into electricity and gas energy. Some of the waste is also turned into Eco bricks and plastic asphalt which are used as materials for the construction of a number of projects in the city.

Not only waste management, the City Green Politics Program in Semarang City is also programmed to be developed into a green city. In addition to issuing regulations on green buildings, the construction of solar, wind, and hydro power plants was also carried out. Semarang City Government always evaluates programs and regulations to make Semarang City a green city. One of them is the program to prohibit the use of plastics throughout the city of Semarang, including schools, restaurants, tourism places, government agencies, and other public places that previously used plastic as wrapping.

Policies have been carried out optimally starting from 2018 with the addition of new regulations or amendments to regulations to optimize the planned program. Currently in Semarang, all supermarkets or minimarkets such as Indomart, Alfamart, "ADA" Supermarkets no longer provide plastic as packaging for customers' groceries, instead customers have to bring their own shopping bags from home or can also buy shopping bags provided by these supermarkets. The same applies to schools that comply with this rule. Before the pandemic, when I was still carrying out schools offline. All schools in the city of Semarang remove plastic from their canteens and replace them with wrapping paper and encourage students to bring reusable places to eat and drink.

This is a very good policy to reduce daily plastic waste in Semarang City. The community must obey the regulations as recommended by the government. What's more, single-use plastic is a material made from chemicals. When in contact with hot food or drink, these chemicals will mix into the food and enter the human body.