From Money to Medals in Indonesia

The Bank Indonesia (BI) office in Bali has come up with a novel – and appropriate – way to recycle end of life banknotes – by turning them into medals that were given to participants in the QRIS Summer Run Bali fun run.Sumatra province, has started to burn banknote waste for power.

The Labuhan Angin power plant utilises the waste as a biomass-based primary energy mixture (cofiring), reducing its dependence on coal. According to the ‘This is our first medal using waste banknotes,’ said Deputy Head of the office, Butet Linda Helena Panjaitan.

The central bank representative office processed around 40kg of banknotes of various denominations that had been shredded, and then collaborated with a number of banks and business enterprises to turn the shreds into the medals. A total of 1,500 were produced, in line with the number of participants in the first running race held by BI in Bali.