About 180 repairers, collectors and residents gathered outside Surabaya City Hall on Tuesday 6 October, draping old cables over a hand-painted wooden frame and chanting for the city to delay its digital e-waste scheme. Their target is KabelKembali, a planned network of 240 electronic-waste lockers whose app will sort devices, record deposits and issue credits to users.
The city says the 18-month pilot will cost Rp18.6 billion (about €1 million) and divert 4.2 tonnes of discarded electronics a week from dumps and informal storage. The lockers are due to begin opening on 1 November. The protest, with a mock “cable bouquet” passed through the crowd, prompted officials to postpone the first launch by 30 days.
Who gets paid for old phones
Dinis Gaspar, who runs a small phone-repair stall near the city’s old market, said the app’s fixed rates could undercut people who buy broken devices for parts. “A phone is not just a box to scan. We know which screen can be saved and which battery has a buyer,” he said. Protesters also objected to the required account registration, arguing that customers without smartphones could miss out.
Marta Teodorescu, the city’s director of digital transition, said the pilot would reserve 60 of its first 100 collection points for repair cooperatives and neighbourhood recycling groups. Residents will receive between Rp5,000 and Rp150,000 (about €0.28 to €8.30) in digital credit, depending on the device. “We are changing the timetable, not abandoning the idea,” she said.
The software will identify devices by type and condition, not store their serial numbers, said project engineer Najwa Meng. She said a user may choose a printed receipt instead of an app notification, and that credits can be redeemed for bus top-ups or household goods. Protesters want the same rates published at every locker and a cash option for people who do not use digital wallets.
A trial with room to change
Manuel Rueda, an electronics-reuse researcher at a Surabaya technical institute, said the city had designed a useful collection tool before agreeing how it would share value with existing collectors. “The clever part is making a dead laptop legible to a recycling system. The hard part is making sure the person who found it is not erased by the software,” he said. He urged officials to test the rates with repair shops before expanding.
The argument has drawn support from both sides. A local merchants’ association welcomed the launch delay, while a residents’ group said another month meant more time to clear drawers of dead chargers. The city will hold three public rate-setting sessions from 12 October and publish the locker map for comment; officials say the revised pilot plan is due by 26 October.
For now, the cable bouquet has been placed beside the city’s public service counter, where staff say it will stay until the first lockers open. Gaspar said he would attend the rate-setting sessions with a box of repairable phones. “If they let us help write the rules, we’ll bring the good parts too,” he said.
