Enggar Munji Wicaksono, an UNPAS student of Faculty of Environmental Engineering was selected to join “Sakura Exchange” program held in University of Kitakyushu, Japan, for a week, 22-28 January 2020
The department of Environmental Engineering UNPAS always send their students off to join the program held by University of Kitakyushu. These following are what Munji reported while he was attending the program:
In January 23rd, 2020, all participants of Sakura and Low Carbon Program joined the International 3R Conference held in Kitakyushu International Conference Center, entitled “Low Governments Actions against Plastic Waste Issues and their Challenges”. The explanation was send by representative companies from Russia, Malaysia, Thailand, Nepal and other companies located in Japan. Every country explained how their government manage their 3R program and how every company take care of the environment are. Those explanations were sent in 15 minutes and ended with discussion-session in 90 minutes.
The night when the conference has ended, the event continued with both Welcoming Party and Farewell Party as well. All participants and teachers enjoyed the night, while it also ended by the souvenirs hand-over ceremony; a jacket was both handed to Fujiyama-sensei and Matsumoto-sensei. They also took a picture together with other participants of Low Carbon Program and Low Carbon participant of Indonesian University of Education.
In January 24th, 2020, all participants visited Eco Town Center where they learned eco-town history in Kitakyushu which is also one of the best eco-town in Japan. The next venue they visited was Recycle Factory: PET in which they recycle PET waste into pellet or flakes based on the need of people. Its output includes hats and ties. Next destination was Fukuoka University Research where all participants conducted some researches about how to maintain organic waste by using landfill. There were 3 landfill simulation spots: each of them was 10 m x 10 m x 2.5 m.
By the end of their trip in January 24th, 2020, all participants visited Tanoshi Compost Center. Tanoshi is a company where organic wastes, such as vegetables, are recycled into compost. The wastes are mostly from shopping center. Its process begins when organic waste is chopped and put into a reactor and the bacteria are added and allowed to stand for 7 days. After that, compost will be matured in the open air and further be sold to the farmers.
In January 25th, 2020, all participants visited Environmental Museum, a museum showing histories of Kitakyushu when there were lots of wastes and smokes from factories. This museum showed that there were lot of changes of Kitakyushu, from nasty condition to the best Eco Town today. There were also some volunteers teaching to make handcrafts.
Next visit in that day was to go to Water Museum, water museum of Murasaki River, located along Murasaki River. This museum is located underground. There were series of chronologies related to the river and the wastewater irrigation system in Kitakyushu when entering the museum. There was also a window as high as 2.3 m x 7.2 m to observe the lives of living creatures in rivers and a water phenomenon called “saltwater wedge”. They also displayed living creatures and river biota that live on the Murasaki River in an ecological aquarium.
The next visit was to Kokura Castle in the evening. Participants of “Sakura Exchange” and “Low Carbon” Program spent the rest of the day in Kokura Castle to take pictures and relax.
In January 26th, 2020, the participants visited Mojiko, a harbor district in Kitakyushu. There were many buildings in the district which was designed by foreign architect, Italian in particular. They also had information about history of Mojiko and took a picture as well there. After finishing their schedule at the harbor, they visited a house, near to the harbor. They were also taught to distinguish the differences between types of paper (Japaness paper or common paper) to be used in making Japanese postcard, either in Hiragana or Katakana.
In January 27th, 2020, they visited 3 places around Eco Town: Hibikinada Biotope, copy-machine recycle factory and car recycle factory. Hibikinada Biotope is the biggest biotope in Japan and was built in a reclaimed-land in 1980-1986. It was publicly opened in October 2012 and there are 237 types of birds, 284 types of plants and 35 types of dragonflies in this biotope. There are mostly endangered species in this biotope.
Next visits were to the copy-machine and laptop recycle factory. These factories are called 00I Company. In the factory, the copy-machine and laptop will be reused by dissembling it into several parts. Those proper and good parts will be used again. The dismantling was done by 1 person around 20-30 minutes for each copy machine and 6-8 minutes for each laptop. The data in the laptop will be backed up, depending on request. It was quiet at the factory because there were no big machines running.
Next visit was to Car Recycle Company “WARC”. Munji said that for those who wanted their cars recycled, there would be no charge fee. It was because when they purchased the car, its recycled fee was also included. Several parts of recycled car would be used again, such as car door, rearview mirror, bumper and other parts. If there were some oils and gasoline in the car, they will be used for forklift at that place. The mirror will be cracked down and recycled into a glass ore. The car frame will be pressed down by approximately 150 tons of pressure weight from above, 35 tons of pressure weight from the front-and-back of the car and 600 tons of pressure weight from the door car.
After all schedules have finished, the Farewell Party was held at the inn because the weather was still raining at the time. It was held and done by handing over certificates and taking pictures together, because Fujiyama-sensei and Matsumoto-sensei were on the move and could not linger. ***
