The MPH Circular Approach

Sean Nino grew up in Indonesia and lived in Germany for 12 years. He has his Masters in Sustainability Economics and is passionate about working in the fields of energy, water and waste with over 8 years of experience in consulting and research for various clients and projects including NGOs, private research firms, industry and private businesses in eco efficiency, energy efficiency, water efficiency, material/waste management and sustainable development,mainly within the Indonesian tourism and environmental property development industry. Nino has been working on solving the waste management crisis in Bali and has developed a comprehensive approach that will be shared in detail in his application. 

Our landfills and dumps are full and overflowing, 1000s of smelly trucks full of mixed waste are looking for a place to dump their loads every day in Indonesia. The population is burning plastics and dumping it in rivers because they are trying to solve the hygiene and health issues that people think are caused by smelly and decomposing waste.

The majority of our world’s population do not understand how effective separation of organics and non-organics is and they miss the key fact that separation plays, in effectively managing materials and being able to reintegrate them into our economy. Recycling ratios improve by up to 80% and jump from a small current 10% to a very high 90% recycling rate if separation is actively enforced and consistently managed over the entire life cycle of every project. Our project has the potential to prove that we can solve the waste crisis.

The specific problem we are trying to solve is how to create consistency in actively engaging the local communities to separate their materials at source and how to build a local understanding that these materials do not get wasted if they are separated at source.

By 2020, 3.5 billion of the worlds population still have no access to minimum municipal solid waste management services and continue to rely on non-effective trucks and poorly managed dumps. (Source: International Solid Waste Association, 2017 APEC Waste Management Conference)

The source of all problems in our material recovery and reverse logistics economy is that separation is not actively being enforced and it is still culturally and socially accepted that separation can be taken care of someone else. Smell, hygiene issues, dirty materials, methane emissions are all caused by the ORGANICS in our material and waste stream. Designing an effective system that is capable of inspiring communities and the people to separate their waste, is at the core of solving our global waste management crisis and we are inspiring communities to be the leaders of change and building a network of showcase projects.

We understand the need to overcome the poorly-functioning government institutions in Indonesia and provide tools that make infrastructure investments and operations transparent. Our approach is community owned waste management initiated by a village registered KSM (Citizen Help) group that further transfers into a BUMDES (Village owned business). We call it the MPH circular approach and have developed templates and guidelines to quickly establish KSM (citizen help) groups which consist of female empowerment, empowering village leaders, women’s groups and youth groups. Every newly established group is guided through information management technology (smartphone apps) and smart communication (presentations and community events) to enforce separation and build momentum in each respective village.  The trial project shows improved recycling rates of currently 60% and theoretical targets of 90%. The facility directly makes use of wet waste by integrating them back into the agricultural system as an organic fertilizer and soil remedy. Where separation at source is enforced at the local village level, the result is very little waste to landfill. Facilities are clean, hygienic and do not smell, making them a pleasant place to work.    

We are building woman leaders and empowering groups of passionate environmentalists to grow their own movement, within their own communities. Every facility that we help build becomes a center for organic materials management, recycling, and upcycling efforts, community owned facilities even have potential to provide drinking water for entire villages of up to 10,000 households. Facilities average revenues of around 5,000 $US and they are owned and managed by the community.

Our program has village gatherings, does workshops, discussion rounds and presentations. We follow traditional practices and respect local heritage and  principles of managing people, nature and well being. We are proving that communities can be highly effective managers of their commons. 

After pushing this project for 4 years I am finally seeing a tipping point where I can clearly see that we have transformed and helped innovate community owned materials and waste management in Bali. 25 facilities will be a tipping point, I already see that strong managers and community leaders help elevate those that are not so strong within the network of communities. Building a network of people is powerful and it impacts the hearts and the minds of youth and aspiring leaders. The Circular MPH approach is well aligned with several dimensions of the Elevate Prize.  

The initial idea started to develop in 2010 when I was doing a 6 month internship for Temesi Recycling. I had to spend time with the waste sorters and did research directly in the dump. I experienced the most impoverished and most left behind aspect of society and realized then and there how much hardship these people are facing. The work is absolutely horrific and inhumane as decomposing organic materials begin to rot and soil the plastics and metals that workers are trying to remove for recycling. This initial internship inspired me to work more on environmental management. I got my masters and studied a lot of topics around material management and recycling, socio-economics, policy design and then I started working on implementation and haven’t stopped learning since. I built a small environmental consulting company to sustain myself while I was working on waste management topics and solutions. There is absolutely no funding and very little support within the waste management industry. This is slowly changing but we really have a ways to go before solving this global waste crisis. 

Growing up and experiencing the beauty of nature in the 80s and 90s has given me an intrinsic motivation and passion to look for solutions to our current environmental crisis. I got my degree in Sustainability Economics and Mgmt and worked on Policy Design for the UN before deciding to work on grass roots projects. I am passionate about consistently building solutions over time and watching them slowly self sustain themselves. I strongly believe that we all have the potential to drive change and that far to many people rely on far to few to manage our commons.  I interviewed the minister of environment in the Philippines for a research project and he said to me. “I have over 100 million people living in this country, if I could only have 1 hour of everyone’s time, I would have 100 million hours of energy and our peoples time to help the environment every day. Imagine what we could achieve with that potential and dedicated time." Working on a global scale in Policy Design made me realize that policies and systems are only as valuable as the actual people that believe in them and implement them.

I was born and raised as a third culture kid that traveled Indonesia, Germany and the US before moving to Germany to finish my higher education and get my Masters in Sustainability Economics. I believe that I appreciate my work and the things I do, because I see the direct benefits that my work brings to local communities and environment. It really drives me to see and to celebrate the small success that we achieve. I know that it is sustainable and that it has a future for everyone that gets involved. I speak 3 languages, can communicate in between disciplines and in between cultures and languages. It makes my role and position unique and there are not many people that are fluent and proficient in the work that I am providing. I believe we all need good character and charisma to empower those around us to become leaders of change.  

When we handed over our initial pilot facility there was a concurrent change in local government and our pilot facility underwent a phase of corruption. Funds went missing, plans were not followed through on, racial biases and physical differences were abused in a way that shamed us. I was angry and felt helpless and overpowered by the situation at hand. Patience is a virtue and I chose to focus on continuing progress and expanding into other communities, to continue to be inspiring and to provide a positive narrative of change. We carried on to talking to the community in distress and repeatedly made clear that the income and funds being embezzled are collectively owned by the people and we explained again and again why checks and balances and monitoring is necessary. We visited the environmental ministry and spoke about their direct targets and goals and invited them to visit the pilot facility and to help provide a thorough examinations. Success has been ours and we have made the necessary adjustments to improve transparency, monitoring and balance in our show case projects. Environmental work and community work is not to be taken personal. We must be persistent in what we do. 

Community meetings are so powerful and bring together all the faces of your neighborhood. Leading by principle and gathering a community behind the same principles is possible and very obtainable as a goal. Providing guidance and methods of governance on a community level reduces complexity down to a level and overcomes the biases that we encounter on a national level. The leadership that I am providing focuses on empowering others and it focuses on providing easy to obtain goals and clear targets that are logical and that provide direct and indirect value to local village communities. I build mutual understanding by applying Elenor Ostroms 8 Principles of Governing a Commons. We use this as a simple framework to achieve success in helping communities look after their own environment. 

In 2020, 3.5 Billion of the worlds population still have no access to minimum municipal solid waste management services and continue to rely on non effective trucks and poorly managed dumps and open landfills. 

Our effort to create purposeful, focused change and to elevate the economic and social potential of waste management, is achieved by focusing on the key fact that materials are what get collected and recycled and that waste should only be a small fraction going to landfill. We are proving that 90% of the materials can get reintegrated into the economy and that we should stop talking about waste and start talking about the potential behind materials management. From the ground up, this must become every national governments approach to managing materials and stop discussing waste. We can scale material management infrastructure and this concept throughout Indonesia. 

Inputs: The MPH program builds on the locally existing and relatively strong principles of managing a common (Non Exclusive Goods). Indonesia has an exceptionally large population that is reliant on traditional belief systems and principles of village and community management. Every village has a Desa Dinas, administrative and Desa Adat, traditionally relevant decision-making context. In fact, every community has clearly defined boundaries and a clearly defined area of responsibility, which is their Wilayah Desa, or spatial land that is under their direct management. Hence our project inputs are focused on building interpersonal links and connections that become consistent and continuously strengthened within this spatial and local context. Outputs and outcomes of our efforts include, transparency, trust and financial sustainability, the impact of our works can be handed on and developed over decades to come.

Outputs:

• Building 25 Community Facilities to reach a first tipping point
  • Provide 25 showcase models where seeing is believing, to enable the local communities to directly experience materials / waste management in a socially acceptable way, to share success stories and build consistently successful materials and waste mgmt.
  • Build 50 community leaders that includes and provides equal decision-making rights between men and women and the community
  • Provide Grant and Development Funding of 2 – 5 million $USD into the local waste management industry in Gianyar, Bali Indonesia
• Providing new and improved infrastructure that is community owned and managed, that creates a financial profit and helps sustain the environmental commons (waste, water, biodiversity, soil building with compost)
• Highly capable facility and community managers, capable of managing and driving change well into the future 

Outcomes:

• Improved regulations and policy support and relevant monitoring tools, that make use of technology to build mutual understanding and trust at a regional and village level regarding materials and waste management
• Providing new and improved infrastructure that is community owned and managed, that creates a financial profit and helps sustain the environmental commons (waste, water, biodiversity, soil building with compost)
• Highly capable facility and community managers, capable of managing and driving change well into the future 

Current Year: 500,000

In Year 2- 3: 1,200,000

In Year 3- 5: 5,000,000   

We plan to connect societies and their local communities to their regional landfill and create a feedback loop of information that is cable of successfully measuring waste to landfill and building mutual understanding of the materials within the region, Kabupaten. We want to create a successful model and regional key performance indicator for all of Indonesia. If it works for Indonesia, it could work for the 3.5 Billion in need of functioning materials management.   

• Develop Equality - Provide income and purpose for vulnerable people, create jobs and new proud to be, material management professionals. Moving on from the informal poor dogs’ sector currently responsible for the countries waste management
• Develop Health - Clear reduction of burning plastics and plastic leakage into river-ways and air
• Develop a Sustainable Environment - Reduced waste to landfill, reduced methane and GHG and reduced groundwater pollution  
• Develop Food security - Increased production of compost for farming and increased production of protein for animal feed, resource inputs required are provided from regional organic waste
• Develop models for Sustainable Cities and communities - Reduce waste to landfill by 90% 

Environmental Barriers: The local environment has reached a tipping point and is in a management crisis. Plastics are getting openly burned, dumped into ravines, leach into the oceans. Plastic waste is physically visible and dumping sites are managed by poor and vulnerable waste pickers instead of by a capable and proficient community of environmental leaders. 

Technical Barriers: No well-functioning infrastructure, the entire region still relies on a poorly functioning open landfill, poorly managed collection systems and very poorly managed infrastructure. 

Psychological Barriers: Communities and businesses alike continue to mix waste and do not separate the materials so that they can be effectively managed. New methods of communication need to be developed to overcome the psychological barriers that evoke very little trust in the existing systems.

External Barriers: The recycling markets face very unfair primary resource markets which are subsidized and do not consider enough quotas of recycled content. This drastically affects the stability of revenue in the recycling industry. There is not enough pull for recycled materials coming from the buyers, this is related to resource policy, subsidies, taxes, and other economic instruments that could ,if changed, successfully influence and help overcome these external barriers of change.

Organizational Barriers: Our internal team needs to grow more capable leaders and internal management capacity.  

Environmental Barriers: We have planned and designed our program so that community owned infrastructure develops and trains local environmental champions, whom are made directly responsible for managing the environment.

Technical Barriers: We are building operating and handing over fully functioning waste and materials management facilities and creating a new dominant system.

Psychological Barriers: Humans are creatures of habit, and we need to have very clear and concise habits in place, if we want to successfully break the bad habits. We have designed and are using an Indonesian related separation strategy and communication style that makes use of the nations flag and colorful identity. Merah Putih Hijau is Red, White and Green. It is a separation strategy that focuses on simplicity and provides clarity.

Habits are triggered by cues found in familiar contexts and we have created design features that eliminate negative habits and substitute positive ones. Our team is experimenting with using prompts, providing feedback, and offering incentives.

External Barriers: We have little leverage and are focused on developing new and innovative solutions to generate income.  We are selling carbon credits to My Climate and through the Gold Standard Verification program. We are developing alternative sources of protein, worm farms, to manage organics and grow protein for feed stock supply. We sell metals, plastics, and other materials to the recycling industry. We are looking for a technical solution provider that can make bricks from plastics. To enable us to sell them to the construction industry.  

1. Government of Gianyar, Bali - Endorses and provides us with credibility 

2. The communities of 25 Villages in Gianyar, Bali - Provide us with land, partnership agreements and the opportunity to collaborate 

3. MyClimate - Buys Carbon Emission Credits from our achieved methane emission savings 

4. TNO Eindhoven - Research - Is providing Eco System Mapping and Capacity Development to continue working on innovation potential and scalability 

5. ITB Bandung - Research - Is providing us with students and interns and has taken the concept to Java. Indonesia´s most populated island of 150 million inhabitants. 

6. Clear Community and LSBU London School of Engineering - Our working on 5 facilities in Java together with ITB Bandung. 

7. Temesi Recycling is our local recycling partner and plant, that is located next to the regional dump of Gianyar, Bali. 

8. Yayasan Bumi Sasmaya - Facilitating NGO 

9. Eco Mantra Bali - Knowledge Partner and Technical Service Provider 

Forms of Income & Revenue 

• Grants
• Donations
• Sales of Carbon Credits
• 5 % of collection fees from Partnering Villages
• Sale of Recycled Materials
• Sale of Protein
• Provision of Consulting Services 

Privately raised donations to date: 200,000 $USD in 2 years

Income from Carbon Credit Sales: 100,000 $USD per year/ 5-year crediting period / 2019 - 2024  

Looking for grant funding and donations to grow our program. We are building necessary infrastructure that is required to run and manage a well functioning economy. This cannot be achieved while providing high returns for private investment and requires more grant and donation funding at the time being. 

We are seeking 2 - 5 million USD$ in the next 5 years. The total amount is totally dependent on our Variable costs and the amount of villages that we onboard and the amount of technology that we integrate. 

Monthly Fixed Costs/Overhead

• Rent 2,000 $USD
• Utility bills 150 $ USD
• Phone bills/communication costs 200 $USD
• Accounting/bookkeeping 800 $USD
• Legal/insurance/licensing fees 1000 $ USD
• Technology Deployment 2000 $ USD
• Advertising & marketing 1000 $ USD
• Salaries 6,500 $ USD

150,000 - 200,000 $USD fixed costs per year, depending on number of team members

Variable Costs per Village Community and Technology Project

• Costs of developing village profiles and partnership agreements per village – 500 $USD paid by village and government

• Cost of Building Infrastructure per Village 50,000 $USD (Grant and Donor Supported)
• Materials and supplies needed per Village 150,000 $ USD – paid by central government
• Direct Capacity Building Costs per Village 15,000 $ USD  
• Monitoring and Evaluation per Village 150 $ USD
• Trainings and follow up development 2,500 $ USD
• Application Design and Deployment (depends of software team)
• Recycling Technology Integrations 2,500,000 (depends on availability of providers)  

50,000 - 100,000 $USD variable costs per village community 

Monthly Fixed Costs/Overhead

• Rent 2,000 $USD
• Utility bills 150 $ USD
• Phone bills/communication costs 200 $USD
• Accounting/bookkeeping 800 $USD
• Legal/insurance/licensing fees 1000 $ USD
• Technology Deployment 2000 $ USD
• Advertising & marketing 1000 $ USD
• Salaries 6,500 $ USD

Annual Fixed Costs 150,000 $USD fixed costs 

I am applying for the elevate prize because I believe that I am addressing a big and critical issue and putting forward powerful, tangible solutions.

The Elevate Prize can help me overcome technical and psychological barriers in providing guidance and a professional network of like minded individuals capable of teaching me how to build stronger team and organizational structure, so that we can stand the tests of time. 

We seek technical experts that know how to develop knowledge integration frameworks and feedback loops and that can provide high quality know how for systems design. Our village capacity building and the future integration of recycling technology requires senior expertise and mentoring. By overcoming the next stages of growth we will inspire others in Indonesia to follow the material management principles. 

We need additional support and leverage to overcome risk related barriers, such as the fear of liability and negative public perceptions, short coming in resource related barriers, limited funding and availability of team members is slowing down the progress of our project. 

1. Recycling technology providers 

2. Material management technology providers

3. Application Design and Monitoring Software Developers

4. Ai integration, automatic quantification of materials by means of truck allocation, GPS tracking,