After the pandemic hit the world, new health/sport trends emerge in hopes to help regulate a healthy lifestyle and mental health such as cycling, diving, golfing, and many more. Mountain climbing or ‘mountaineering’ is among them. The current trend of mountaineering causes serious environmental problems. One of them is caused by the amount of garbage left by the climbers. Based on survey results from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, 53% or the equivalent of 250 tons of waste is plastic waste that is difficult to decompose has the potential to permanently pollute the national park ecosystem.
In the last 50 years, plastic production has increased more than 22 times. Not only that, the global COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in the use of plastic medical masks, gloves, and protective eyewear. Worse, many policies that were meant to limit single-use plastic products have been scrapped for various reasons.
Given that, Do Something Indonesia and YCAB Foundation held a #JagaAlam campaign aimed to increase public awareness of the environment in commemoration of Environment Day on June 5. The fundraising initiative entitled #JagaAlam is an offline campaign that formed a hiking team called iClimb4YCAB and collects plastic waste along the hiking trail. The team will hike 3 mountains and all waste collected from this activity will be given to the waste bank for recycling.
Do Something Indonesia is a space for young Indonesians who care to make social change through various topics and actions, ranging from the environment, violence, education, poverty, and others. It is a nationwide movement with more than 20 thousand young people from all over Indonesia supporting social actions through a digital platform in various issues and campaigns.
Supporters may find and support #JagaAlam with #iClimb4YCAB on kitabisa fundraising platform. All funds raised will be used to support the iClimb4YCAB movement. In addition to that, this fund will also be channeled to provide education and facilitate the need for Go Green to youths at Rumah Belajar YCAB in sorting and recycling waste, encouraging reuse of items, and how they can contribute directly to their school and environment.