Starting from social media, Sahid Hanan Fauzi (Aquaculture 2018), Ade Bintang Sektya Putri (Agricultural Microbiology 2018), and Rista Tri Purnasari (Aquatic Resources Management 2017) gathered to form a team to participate in LKTI PINISI (National Scientific Week of Research and Technology). PINISI is a series of Maritime Festival activities held by the Department of Marine Engineering, UNDIP with a big theme, “Less Plastic, Save Our Sea”. The amount of plastic waste that pollutes the coast of Gunungkidul has moved the team to take real action. The team collected data through direct interviews with visitors, shop owners, and TPA, as well as adding supporting data. After discussing with Dr. Ratih Ida Adharini, S.Pi, M.Si, as the supervising lecturer, the team took the technology sub-theme and proposed an idea in the form of using plastic in aquaponics to solve this problem. The team’s idea was put into an abstract form which was declared by the committee to have passed the initial selection in early August. The next stage is the preparation of a full paper so that their ideas can be described clearly and in detail. The title they propose is EFIGRIC (Eco Friendly Agriculture in the Coastal). An aquaponic installation system made from plastic waste as a step to optimize the development of environmentally friendly agriculture in the Gunungkidul Coastal Area, Yogyakarta. The team’s long journey finally paid off. At the end of last September, they were declared to be in the top 10 nominations and were invited to make presentations before the jury, which was held on 19-20 October 2019 at Diponegoro University, Semarang, Central Java. After competing with teams from major universities such as UI, ITS, UNDIP, UNPAD, and Sahid University, the team from UGM managed to bring home the third place trophy.
