Meet The Man Who's Doing Everything Right

In Indonesia, we uncovered an inspiring tale about a doctor who combines his commitment to saving the environment by providing free health care.

“You are wrong if you think this is just a bottle. This bottle can save your life,” says Dr. Yusuf Nugraha, also known as Dr. Plastic from Cianjur, Indonesia.

“I really understand the suffering in Indonesia. We live in poverty.”

Seeing the poor economic condition of residents of the town, the young doctor Yusuf Nugraha was inspired to establish independent clinics supporting several programs which are opening their doors to treat the not so well-off population when sick.

Dr. Nugraha wanted to be a doctor form a very young age. He had to wok to afford his education, so he sold rice. This is why he can now combine one program to yield two benefits. He is helping poor patients by giving free health care and at the same time he helps society by teaching people the importance of collecting plastic waste.

He developed his free program in order to protect his community’s dignity because people tend to get offended when they are offered things for free.

“Why plastic bottles? Because I want people to understand and be aware of the dangers of plastic. Most Indonesians are not informed. It takes ages to decompose,” Dr. Nugraha adds.

They store the collected plastic in a warehouse in the hope to recycle it and reduce its negative effect on nature. They managed to collect 180,000 plastic bottles in the last three years.

“I hope that in the future Indonesia will be able to provide better health care and I hope to see a change in people’s behavior. For all these reasons, I am determined to be an agent of that change and create a better living environment.”