Trade Trash for Healthcare

For 24-year-old Indonesian Gamal Abinsaid household trash is not something you should throw away.

58-year-old Mohammad Yazid is walking slowly towards a health clinic. 

He says his whole body is trembling and he has a severe headache. 

He’s handing over a bag full of plastic waste and the Garbage Clinical Insurance card to the clinic staff.  

“I bring 1 kilo of plastic and paper waste. I’m glad I can pay my healthcare with this, I don’t have to pay anything.”

Another patient, Siti Hasanah says she has breathing problem. 

She too pays her health care with her waste. 

“I’m happy. I just bring my waste here, the medication is free, and the health check is also free.”

Both Yazid and Siti are members of the Garbage Clinical Insurance in Malang, East Java. 

The clinic aims for poor people so they can afford a proper health care by selling their household waste. 

Members can collect their waste every Saturday or pay with garbage every time they visit the clinic. 

The founder of this clinic is 24-year-old Gamal Albinsaid. 

This young doctor says he see economic value of managing household waste and turn them into something useful. 

“I choose household waste because it has a lot of potentials. You can imagine that all products will end up as waste. So the key is to elevate the value of the waste significantly. So we combine the waste potential and insurance concept, and created this. People can pay their insurance fee with waste, and it’s a micro-project. So we’re taking the available potentials in the people and turn them into a healthcare fund, and we give it back to the society in the form of health care clinic. 

The clinic was started last year, and now it has five clinics across the city. 

Operating from 4 in the afternoon until 8 at night, dozens of patients are lining up every day. 

“We’re now focusing on primary health care. But keep in mind that this is a holistic health care service. So if you’re healthy, we will keep you healthy… we will prevent healthy people to become sick, and rehabilitate them who are already ill.”

There are now 500 members of the Garbage Clinical Insurance project. 

Individuals are encouraged to collect their household waste and submit their refuse to the clinic, then it’s processed or sold to government-owned Malang Waste Bank. 

Head of the Malang Waste Bank Rizal Fachrudin says all the waste here will turn into something useful. 

“We turn the organic waste into fertilizer and worm farm in our area.”

Local government welcomed the clinic says Head of Malang Health Office Asih Tri Rachmi. 

“We will help the clinic… we will give additional facilities at the Office for them.”

For his revolutionary idea, Gamal was recently announced the winner of the top prize of the Prince of Wales Young Sustainability Entrepreneur. 

In a ceremony held at the Buckingham Palace, Gamal received the award from Prince Charles with a prize of nearly 70,000 US dollars in financial support. 

For this award, Gamal says he wants this to bring more goodness and that he will continue helping people until he can’t.