Environmental Education in Action: Community-Higher Education Partnership to Tackle Waste Issue Case Study: Creating Green Waste Shredder Machine for Sustainable Environment at Local Community

Household green waste materials in the form of unwanted vegetables from the kitchen, leaves and branches from yard trimming can create problems when they are not handled properly. They can take up a lot of space and cause threat to the public health. However, this waste is potential material to process easily into compost. Community in Siwalankerto near Petra Christian University campus has made compost from their kitchen green waste. From the beginning, Petra Christian University has been involved in training to make compost in relation with educating this community about sustainable environment through waste reuse. As need for bigger amount of compost increased, a shredder machine is required for the green waste. Therefore a team of faculty member and students from Mechanical Engineering Department and Centre for Sustainable Energy Studies built this shredder machine. The team has successfully built the machine that fits their need based on the method of sustainable product development. The machine works by shredding the green wastes with blades that rotate manually and is powered by cycling its gasoline motor. The green wastes are put into the machine from the top by utilizing gravity force. With this machine, Siwalankerto community can create a sustainable environment that leads to zero green waste.