The success of UGM team in obtaining one of all eight gold medals during the final of the Mondialogo Engineering Award (MEA) 2009 in Stuttgart, Germany, was initiated by the idea of waste treatment in Samigaluh sub-district, Kulon Progo regency, where as many as 18 small manufacturers produced essentail oil. None of them, however, has treated the waste resulting from the production.
“Every day, each of them can produce essential oil twice, each process needs 500 kg of clove leaves and branches and patchouli," said Annisa Utami accompanied by Benny, Annisa Sekar Palupi and M.Aqwi Gibran. The four UGM students talked to journalists at the Fortakgama Room, Wednesday (18/11).
The amount of 500 kg of raw materials will only produce 2.5 % of oil and the rest (97.5%) becomes the waste in the form of dry leaves and water. “How much waste produced in that area is imaginable,†she said. The rest of the oil has not been used by the people while the leaves waste can be used as fuels for tofu industry and the water residue actually still contains oil. “Until now the water is only thrown away so it causes pollution because it has not been purified. The waste can also be made herbal soaps,†said Benny.
Benny added that the essence of the project is to call for people to recycle wastes as they can produce something useful if properly processed.
The project combined all potentials in Sidoarjo village to become an integrated system. “The essential oil industry, biogas producers, community organisers, government and the university will become the supporting pillars of this system. In the future, sustainability is expected to emerge as this involves people’s participation,†he said.
It may already be understood that MEA is an international competition initiated by Daimler Chrysler and the UNESCO. In its website, MEA said that the project was to encourage engineering students from various developing countries and developed countries to work together. The teams would later write proposals to promote the UN Millenium Development Goals, particularly to reduce poverty level and improve quality of life in developing countries. UGM team teamed up with that from Chalmers University in Sweden right from the brainstorming phase up to the writing process. In the final, Benny partnered with Marcus Hogberg, presenting their project ideas. They won over 30 finalists from 28 countries and were granted a prize worth €15 thousand in fund for project development.