The Role of Voluntary Communities in Tackling Environmental Problem in Samarinda, Indonesia

Waste management is a problem in Samarinda, Indonesia. The local government has limited capacity to transport the garbage meanwhile some people put the garbage into rivers, ditches, and illegal spots. Some citizens then organize themselves to build voluntary communities to intervene in this issue. This paper aims to search for the public value creation that is made by the voluntary groups. The data are collected in three ways, including interviews, observation, and secondary data. This study employs Stoker’s four prepositions to public value management. This study finds out that the environmental problem in this city is caused by three issues, such as lack of capacity in transporting the waste, poor awareness among some people, and the law enforcement and omission by the local government. Second, voluntary communities create an ecological value to save the environment. Although at the earlier time the volunteers got negative responses from some people, recently they get support from some stakeholders, such as some people, officials, politicians, and the private sector. Strengthened by publication through social media, the volunteers promote their programs and activities to save the environment in the city. Third, citizen involvement from outside of the groups is still limited therefore developing collaboration along with citizens’ involvement is urgent to accelerate the effectiveness of this voluntary works. Finally, generating capacity and law enforcement by the local government needs to be implemented to reduce the scattered waste in the city.