Kitakyushu, As a Green Sister City Commits to Free Surabaya from Waste

iniSURABAYA – In 1960, Kitakyushu had been struggled the worst waste problem. Now the city which located in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan, has totally transformed into an environmentally friendly city.

“Learning from our past experience, Kitakyushu determined to help Surabaya becoming a waste-free city in the future,” said the Director of Asian Center for Low Carbon Society, Murakami Emiko, to inisurabaya.com on Tuesday (11/12/2018).

As met after the fifth Indonesia-Japan Business & Technology Symposium finished, Emiko enthusiastically mentioned some ongoing collaborative projects of waste management between Kitakyushu and several cities in Indonesia.

“Kitakyushu works closely with many countries in Asia. In Indonesia itself, there are 33 ongoing projects spread all over the cities,” she confirmed.

But, Emiko continued, Surabaya has the largest amount of collaborative projects compared to the other cities. “In Surabaya there are around 21 projects,” she uttered.

Emiko admitted, the high amount of the project in Surabaya was because of the huge support from the Surabaya Major, Tri Rismaharini. “If you wonder why Surabaya has the most significant ongoing projects compared to other cities, it’s because of the enthusiasm and the great support from Risma for the Surabaya’s environmental and waste management,” she explained.

She also told the background story how Kitakyushu met Surabaya till it cooperated together and became Green Sister City. Emiko claimed, the delegation of Kitakyushu and Surabaya met for the first time in Brasil, 1992, when both received an award of the best local government by the UN.

“Then on 1997 both sides signed the Joint Declaration of The Kitakyushu Conference on Environmental Cooperation Among Cities in the Asian Region,” she added.

Among the amount of ongoing projects, Kitakyushu and Surabaya is now focusing to improve on medical waste management. With the support from Nishihara, one of a waste management company in Japan, also with the help of JICA, the project which will be carried out in the beginning of 2019 aims to actualize and develop Less Carbon City in Surabaya.

For further survey and observation reason Emiko often flies to Surabaya. “I have visited Surabaya 20 times and I can’t wait to come back here again next month for observing program of medical waste management with Risma the Major of Surabaya,” said Emiko with full of enthusiasm. sum