MAHUSA UNILA LAMPUNG PROMOTES PARTICIPATORY CAMPUS WASTE PROCESSING

The annual increase in the number of campus and university residents has become a serious problem related to waste production in these areas. Moreover, this problem is not balanced by efforts to raise awareness among residents to participate in maintaining environmental cleanliness. There is also no initiative from campus bureaucrats to provide adequate waste management infrastructure. This issue was raised by students from the Faculty of Law, University of Lampung (Mahusa Unila), a nature conservation group and member of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment Lampung (Walhi).WALHI Lampung). Mounds of garbage are strewn across several locations around the Unila Faculty of Law area. Furthermore, poor drainage, unprocessed plastic and organic waste, clog the drains, causing uncontrolled flooding during the rainy season.

Mahusa Unila offers a solution to this problem by providing infrastructure for waste processing and outreach to raise awareness among Unila Law Faculty students and their involvement in maintaining environmental cleanliness. The infrastructure provided includes trash bins placed at several locations within the Unila Law Faculty, the provision of bottle banks as a place to dispose of plastic bottles, the creation of biopores for processing organic waste, and the creation of warning boards. In addition to procuring or constructing waste processing infrastructure, Mahusa Unila also conducted an environmental study inviting Unila Law Faculty students to discuss environmental cleanliness holistically. As a result, the initiative to procure infrastructure and outreach for waste processing was able to increase the knowledge and involvement of Unila Law Faculty students in maintaining environmental cleanliness. During the implementation of the initiative, Mahusa Unila only faced challenges from campus bureaucrats who were considered quite difficult to issue permits for their activities. However, they were able to overcome this through a work program presentation approach.

This initiative has had a direct impact on the understanding and skills of Unila Faculty of Law students regarding integrated waste management. The initiative impacts the 2,98-hectare area that comprises the Unila Faculty of Law. The education also impacts 4.108 students.