Municipal Waste Recycling Program Grantee
Friday, November 20, 2020
Swietenia Puspa
Lestari, the founder and Executive Director of DIG program grantee Divers Clean
Action, was featured on the prominent
Forbes 30 under 30 Social
Entrepreneurs of 2020 list and was also named as one of BBC’s 100 most
inspiring and influential women of 2019.
Divers Clean
Action was awarded a grant by the USAID-funded, DIG-implemented, Municipal
Waste Recycling Program to increase plastic recycling and improve livelihoods
in Thousand Islands, Indonesia. Swietenia, as the organization’s leader, has
been instrumental in expanding the number of local participants engaged in the
Thousand Islands community-based solid waste management system and in improving
the solid waste collection services provided by the government. She has helped
secure the support of international corporations (such as H&M and Danone)
to connect recycling efforts on the islands with the recycling value chain in
Jakarta and has introduced bulk stores that avoid plastic packaging. In
addition to her recent Forbes and BBC honors, Swietenia was chosen to represent
Indonesia at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2017.