VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Many people are lazy to manage the waste in their homes, starting from being lazy to sort out the garbage to not knowing where to throw away this garbage. Octopus, a startup created by the nation's children, is now present to provide convenience for the community in processing and recycling waste into more valuable goods.

Octopus is an application that supports a circular economy and can help manufacturers track and collect used products, whether they can be recycled or not. This application is created to help overcome the problem of waste used for consumption. Users can send used packaging for later recycling into products that have a selling value. Octopus also provides a pick-up service for post-consumption packaging via the application. It also provides data that will be useful for the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) industry and provide solutions for the packaging industry. Octopus dreams of being the most effective solution for the industry to overcome its recycling material supply problems.

Apart from contributing significantly to protecting the environment through waste management, Octopus also offers various benefits for its users. In addition to the convenience offered for users to manage waste, users will also benefit from every waste collected. Later, the benefit can be obtained in the form of points that can be exchanged at partners who work with Octopus, such as credit, electricity tokens, discounts, and dining vouchers at restaurants.

In its working system, Octopus has ‘pelestari’, which means 'sustainers'. Pelestari stands for "Pahlawan Biru Penjaga Alam tetap Lestari”, which means, "Blue Heroes Keep Nature Sustainable". They are the people who help track and collect waste from the person who reports it. Mostly, they are scavengers who are then given training on how to use the application and identify packaging waste according to the recycling industry standards. However, they are not limited to scavengers, there are even many students, motorcycle taxi riders, and former employees who have been laid off. These sustainers gain not only knowledge about processing waste, but also incentives from what they do. Now, Octopus has almost 200 thousand users spread across Jakarta, South Tangerang, Bandung, Bali and Makassar. This application also collaborates with more than 1,700 waste banks and 14,600 scavengers who have been trained to become conservationists.