Indonesia’s second-largest city has come up with a novel way to encourage its residents to recycle waste: giving free bus rides in exchange for used plastic bottles. Under the scheme launched by Surabaya in April, commuters can ride red city buses by dropping off plastic bottles at terminals or directly ‘paying’ a fare with bottles. A two-hour bus ticket costs 10 plastic cups or up to five plastic bottles, depending on their size, which the city hopes will help it meet an ambitious target of becoming free of plastic waste by 2020. City data shows that 15 percent, or nearly 400 tonnes, of Surabaya’s daily waste is plastic. A bus can collect up to 250 kg (550 lb) of plastic bottles a day, or roughly 7.5 tonnes in a month, the data shows. Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands, is estimated to be the world’s second-largest contributor of plastic pollutant in the oceans after China, according to a 2015 study published in “Science” journal. Credit: World Economic Forum
