Plastic bottle waste has been long as a big problem in Indonesia. According to the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), plastic waste produced in Indonesia reaches 64 million tons per year, of which 3,2 million tons are thrown into the sea. Because of that, there is a need for a smart solution that is effective and efficient to solve the problem of plastic waste, especially plastic bottles which are increasingly mounting and seriously threatening the sustainability of the environment.   

To reduce the problem of plastic bottle waste, Universitas Trisakti just introduced a sophisticated machine called SI-MANTAN (Sistem Integration for Machine as Nature Protection) at the ‘Merdeka Innovation Summit 2023’ Event, at Bidakara Hotel Jakarta, on November 16-17, 2023. Prof. Dr.Ir Astri Rinanti, MT with Dr.Ir. Nurhikmah Budi Hartanti, MT who was met at the event location also told the story about the process until SI-MANTAN succeded in being one of the participants of the Merdeka Innovation Summit 2023.

According to Dr. Ir. Nurhikmah at the beginning, a team from Universitas Trisakti led by Prof. Dr. Wegig Murwonugroho, S.Sn., M.Hum, and with the members Prof. Dr. Ir. Astri Rinanti, MT, Dr. Ir. Nurhikmah Budi Hartanti, MT, Dr. Winnie Septiani, ST, MSi, Dr. Sri Vandayuli Riorini, MM, dan Thalia Sunaryo, ST, MM, participated in pitching session at Matching Fund Kedai Reka 2022 program, a platform who built by the Ministry of Education, Research and Technology to connect people from higher education with the business world.

Universitas Trisakti team who sent SI-MANTAN finally picked as one of the nine best innovation works by Kedai Reka which were exhibited at the ‘Merdeka Innovation Summit 2023’ Event. SI-MANTAN itself is a machine that has the plus point to detect types of plastic bottle material like PET CW (Clear White), PET BM (Blue Magenta), or PET Warna, sorted automatically and chopped according to industry needs. Prof. Astri told briefly about how SI-MANTAN works in front of the guest who was present and saw this machine.

“Initially, the barcode on the bottle is scanned and this tool will detect it, then we separate the bottle cap and place it in a special place because the caps have different qualities, while the bottle is also placed on the right, in the place provided. Later, when the green button is lit, the bottle will go inside and be destroyed. The result is plastic that is crushed and ready to be resold. However, if the yellow button is lit, it means the type of bottle is not detected and will be chopped up in a different room,” explained Prof Astri while showing the results of plastic bottle waste that had been chopped up.

Prof Astri also added that in the future SI-MANTAN will continue to be developed, one of which is to add one more menu to detect the total number of plastic bottles that have already been destroyed and get the rewards as points. Universitas Trisakti is currently collaborating with Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), so in the future whoever chopped the plastic bottle with the SI-MANTAN machine will get points for the number of bottles who already been chopped on the card provided by BNI.

In the end, Universitas Trisakti with this innovation hoped that SI-MANTAN would be commercialized and gain larger investors to mass produce the machine. This is because this machine is very useful, especially as a form of concern for the environment from plastic bottle pollution.