News – Page 2 – Chicago Muslims Green Team

Green Mosque

A plastic recycle vending machine has been installed at Istiqlal Mosque, the largest mosque in Southeast Asia, located in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia (click here for the virtual tour of the mosque).

A plastic recycle vending machine in Istiqlal Mosque

As reported by VOI, the collected plastic bottle waste can be exchanged into Plasticpay Points through an app which can later be converted into electronic money that widely used in the city, such as DANA, OVO, Gopay, LinkAja, and INACASH.

According to Antara News, the Istiqlal Mosque recently became the first mosque in the world to receive an Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies (EDGE) certificate, as a green place of worship, from the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

The certificate has been awarded to the mosque since the worship place has been renovated based on an environmentally friendly concept. It has increased the efficiency of water and energy usage of the building by applying energy-efficient roofs, outer walls, and lighting; installing smart energy meters; as well as using solar panels, which support more than 13 percent of the building’s electricity consumption.

Waste Bank

Another green news comes from Tanjung Burung Waste Bank – or “bank sampah” as they are called in Indonesian.

At the Waste Bank, customers deposit their household waste and receive money in their bank account based on the rates and weight of the waste. Customers separated the waste into two, inorganic and organic. Inorganic waste is recycled and turned into bricks. Organic one is processed into compost.

Composter to turn organic waste to compost

The flowchart of the process to turn organic waste into compost, it includes storage (*gudang*) and marketing (*pemasaran*)

Another alternative to recycle plastic waste to build a wall

Recycle plastic bottles used to build a decoration fence

Reported by Jimmy Kalempouw
CMGT Ambassador from Indonesia

Monarch butterflies are now listed as endangered!

As reported by AP on July 21, The International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the migrating monarch butterfly for the first time to its “red list” of threatened species and categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from extinct.

Screenshot of monarch news on July 21, 2022

It means, the job is far from being done to prevent the monarch’s extinction.

In 2019, CMGT and Homes4Monachs hosted “Save Our Monarch” workshop at Downtown Islamic Center. At the workshop, participants learned how to harvest milkweed seeds and plant them. Milkweeds are the required host plants for caterpillars of the monarch butterfly and thus play a critical role in the monarch’s life cycle.

Thanks to the milkweed seeds shared at the event, Caroline from CMGT was motivated to grow milkweeds in her backyard. She was happy to see a monarch visited her milkweed plants in summer. She is also happy whenever she finds milkweed plants wherever she goes. For example, when she was at Forest Preserve Bemis Woods North to attend Hiking Leadership Training, she took a picture of milkweed plant there.

Caroline’s picture of Monarch visited her milkweed plant last Summer

In 2018, a documentary titled “The Guardians” was released to raise awareness about the incredible monarch migration in North America. It also shows how an indigenous community in Mexico fought illegal loggers who destroy their ancient forest, the home of the people and millions of monarchs.

Here is the trailer of the movie.

Anyone who are interested in protecting monarch can participate in many projects, for examples, Field Museum Monarch Community Science Project, Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network, or use free resources developed by UIC Heritage Garden.

Category: News

Green News from Indonesia

What a Sad News!