Agents of Change: Rafa Jafar / Founder, EwasteRJ

Direct Talk

Rafa Jafar is the founder of EwasteRJ,

a nonprofit community-based organization

tackling the e-waste
recycling problem in Indonesia.

Since forming,

EwasteRJ has successfully collected
more than 7 ton of electronic waste

by installing drop boxes that allow the community
to access recycling facilities,

educating youth,

and collaborating with local governments
to scale up their activities.

At the age of eleven,
Rafa published his first e-waste book,

making him the youngest
Indonesian non-fiction author.

If you can do so much more then why not.

If you can write a book
out of your research paper. Why not?

And then when the book started
the same mindset comes again,

if you can do so much more,

if you can create a community,
you can create movement out of that book. Why not?

E-waste describes discarded electrical devices

and, in 2019,

the world generated
more than 50 million ton of e-waste and

continues to grow rapidly.

Based on the Global E-waste Monitor,

Indonesia is the 7th largest producer of e-waste,

creating more than 1.6 million tons in 2020.

Rafa is one of Indonesia's
youngest proponents for positive action,

and along with EwasteRJ, is contributing to
changing the culture of e-waste and sustainability.

For Rafa and his team,

creating lasting change is
their generation's responsibility,

and starts with educating the nation's youth.

Agents of Change

Seeing how public react to E-Waste,

I can say 90% of them is
still not aware of what E-Waste is.

Where does it come from?

And how can we differentiate
that from original waste?

Technology is rising.

People are enjoying new products.

But then this E-Waste, they're not recycled properly.

When it's recycled informally,

the way these informal sectors just do;

environmental contamination,

the toxins inside E-Waste,

mercury, lead,
it will contaminate the environment.

And it will lead to diseases in humans.

But the goal is not to recycle
as much E-Waste as possible.

The goal is to reduce
the amount of E-Waste that is produced.

And so it's never just about
how we can recycle as much as possible.

It's how we can change the whole system

and we can have the stakeholders
to do their own role

and collaborate with each other.

Rafa's experience and knowledge
of e-waste defies his young age,

with his efforts being recently rewarded

with an appearance on the latest Forbes Indonesia

30 under 30 list of influential persons.

Yet before he founded and launched
Indonesia's leading non-profit organisation

in electronic waste at the age of 12,

he described himself as a young boy fueled by
curiosity and fascinated with technology.

Everything started when I was in 5th grade.

My other occupation as a learner is a gamer.

I play a lot of games.

And I keep on buying new devices.

And then they started to break.

Then I buy new ones again.
Then they break.

And then there is still one full drawer
full of electronic waste.

At elementary school,
Rafa undertook an issue-based research project.

With a keen interest in e-waste,

Rafa spent almost 4 months
developing and creating his report

that he presented at his school's exhibition.

My grandfather came to that exhibition.

And then he told me that
it can be elevated into a book.

And so, you know as a 10 year old,

the imagination of having a book
with my name on it was,

that really sparked my excitement.

Oh yeah. I want to write a book.

And so yeah I wrote the book from it.

If you can write a book
out of your research paper. Why not?

And when the book started,
the same mindset comes again

if you can do so much more,

if you can create a community if you can
create movement out of that book. Why not?

At the age of 11, Rafa published his first book -

"E-Waste."

The book sought to
make e-waste management easy to understand

whilst encouraging children and their families

to be more mindful of
how e-waste impacts the environment.

From that book, we have a lot of sections on

what you're supposed to do
with the issue of e-waste

and what movements can you do.

I was thinking like,
"Why don't we just do this by our own."

"Why can't we just help people
to do these kinds of movements?"

That's how it really sparked
the movement EwasteRJ and becomes a community.

While still a teenager,

Rafa created and installed 5 drop boxes
in his school and local community,

to enable e-waste to be easily disposed of.

Following his initiative's positive response,

Rafa was motivated to launch EwasteRJ

with the help of his friends
and high school alumni,

aiming to ignite an e-waste recycling movement.

Launching a non-profit organization
is no easy feat

and for teenage Rafa,

this challenge only increased by his decision

to pursue a law degree at
Yogyakarta's University of Gadjah Mada.

It's always a challenge to juggle between doing
my work in EwasteRJ and school at the same time.

And right now I'm in my first year of college.

So it's still a bit of a challenge
when I'm still adjusting to the new environment

of being a college student in a University.

In EwasteRJ we have a lot of people
that's already in environmental engineering.

We have them study that.

And I wanted to come on a
different approach on how we see this issue.

The plan is taking the Major of environmental law.

So we want to make the team
as diverse as possible.

We don't want just everyone to have
the education of an environmental engineer.

But also from different perspectives
and points of view.

Through the journey itself, through the process

I found a lot of new things
that I'm capable of basically. Because

those new things that I found out was the,

you know some of the little sparks
that made me ok we can still go.

We can still develop,

we can still evolve as a community,

as an organisation.

That's really the key on how I kept on going.

Through promotional campaigns,

EwasteRJ encourages the public
to place their e-waste in their drop boxes

which are then collected by
members of the EwasteRJ team

and handed over to
management firms for processing.

Drop boxes provide Rafa and his team
a focus point to raise awareness about,

and facilitate e-waste collection
at the community level.

Our tagline is campaign, collect, and circulate.

I like to say that we're the bridge
to connect the stakeholders.

Because when we look at
the cycle of electronic devices.

We start from the producers.

And then through the sellers,
and then someone consumes it.

To the consumers.

And then from there,

properly it has to go to the recycling centre.

And from the recycling centre
you can go back to the producers

to create more and new devices.

People imagine it as very like complicated move.

I planned it and everything.

But actually it's very organic.

And the transition was, the idea was,

ok, we wanna make a movement.

We wanna provide our own dropbox.

And from that,

how can we make a team to educate more people.

And so when I was in middle school

I used my middle school's alumni list.

I found out like who knows more
about E-Waste than we do.

And it was the alumni there
who were already in college,

who was already
studying environmental engineering, so

we ask them to, do you want to make a team?

Do you want to start this small community?

And they said yes.

And it started from there.

Surprisingly there's a lot of people
who want to contribute with our movement.

People do want to tackle this issue.

And those things cumulatively spark me.

Ok, we need to make this official.

A key component of EwasteRJ's campaigning
takes place in schools.

Not only does it allow Rafa
to affect change at the grassroots level,

it has also proved a valuable resource
in adding team members to their growing community.

We talk to the students there,
we talk about E-Waste.

We tell them how dangerous it is.

We ask them,
how are you using your electronic devices?

How are you managing your E-Waste
that you have in your house.

And if you do, you throw them to
or dispose them into EwasteRJ.

Why we also target school

is that we also want to expand our team.

We also wanna have a team with Gen Z,

with curious and energetic people.
Where we want to collaborate together.

That's why I love it when we go to schools,
when we go to universities. Because

there would be new people
who are excited to join our team.

By continuing to develop
their concept and expand their team,

EwasteRJ has collected
more than 7 ton of e-waste,

and grown its passionate team
to more than 20 e-waste-collecting agents

helping service 20 drop box points
in 12 cities across Indonesia.

Of course it's important for young people to do
and start to contribute on world emerging issues.

However, I do think that it's not a must.

It's not really an obligation
for young people to do such thing.

I really do think that my generation, Gen Z,

the power that we have is energy and curiosity.

We have that two very important value,

that maybe, baby boomers or millennials
perhaps don't have what we have.

That energy and curiosity.

And you pair them with the older that
do have more experience, generations

that have more knowledge.

You can create something out of that.

You can create big ideas.

You can create big projects.

And I think the urge of collaborating

intra-generational collaborations is what we need.

Because, change can come from anywhere.

And you don't have to follow
the same sector that everyone is doing.

You don't have to be a change maker
in the field of environment.

You don't really have to do that.

You do what you like.

And the contribution of young people
will always be huge,

and will always be the key element of
creating real change.

But then again, as a teenager

I tend to lose focus.

And I tend to get bored really fast.

But what really motivates me to keep on going

is of course first my amazing team
that supports me,

supports each other to keep on going.

A team is very important

because you can never create a change alone.

Realizing what you're not good at

is also as important as
realizing what you're good at.

Because when you do realize
what you're not good at,

you know that people need to
fill in that spot that you don't have.

And you need to embrace what that you don't have.

That's where your team comes in.

And that's where
exponential growth starts to create.

As EwasteRJ gathers national attention,

local governments seek collaborations.

Following the success of their pilot program,
in Tangerang, an emerging city of West Java,

the government has ramped up
EwasteRJ activities to all 29 districts.

Rafa plans to promote this
as a prototype for implementation

by all Indonesian provincial governments.

These government sectors do already
have a division where they focus

on the field of hazardous waste

which includes electronic waste.

But a lot of them don't know
where to start or what are we supposed to do.

So we give them
some sort of roadmap on where to start.

How to start.

What we're gonna do.

And what are the programs.

And what are the things
that we have to analyze first to see,

what's the type of the people
that's living in that area.

How will they react
when there's a program like this.

And what's the perfect type of campaign

that can make them to want to
contribute to the programs that we have.

We collaborate with the
sub-national government of Tangerang.

And there, we first, provide the dropboxes
for people to throw their electronic waste.

Then to reach the rural areas,

we provide a car that

goes around to the more rural areas

to pick up the E-Waste
that people are asking for to be picked-up.

Rafa sees his collaborations with the government

as a two-way learning opportunity.

Being a smaller, independent organisation

allows EwasteRJ to revise their strategy

according to the needs of each province
and newly acquired knowledge.

We do realize that this issue of electronic waste
is more in the urban area.

Where people buy more electronic devices.
Where people use technology more.

However in rural areas

it's also a big issue.

That is why we started to

collaborate with these environmental sectors,
sub-national governments.

And how from that,
we can reach out to these rural areas.

Because in the urban areas we can,

ok, put a dropbox in the mall,
put a dropbox in the public space,

and expect people to go there.
And then throw all their electronic waste.

But in the rural areas we can't really do that.

We have to be the ones
who pick up the E-Waste from the location.

Not only has EwasteRJ
managed successful collaborations

with governments
and built relationships in schools,

they also launched National E-Waste Day in 2021,

collecting 2.4 ton of e-waste in only 6 months.

Yet, his ambitions
for the future continue to grow.

EwasteRJ is still in beginning of our journey.

There's so much more big things that we can do.

There's so much more things
that we can do to scale up our movement.

To scale up our programs.

The question is
can we become a recycling company?

Can that come true?

That's still a very long way.

But we're on the verge of figuring out
if we can become that or not.

Rafa knows his dreams are ambitious

but remains confident that
young people can make a difference

and their actions can grow into bigger movements.

My message to other young people is that
I do believe everyone can become a change maker.

And change starts from yourself.

What's your passion? What do you love to do?

Take your time.

You wanna do it now. You do it now.

You wanna do it tomorrow. You do it tomorrow.

Adjust with your own time zone

And do not compare yourself with others.

Because everyone has a different pace.

Everyone has a different background.

So be the change you wish to see in the world.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Every one is the change maker

and change starts from you.