The Recycling Village – the heart of Project Wings

The Recycling Village is where the story of Project Wings began and is still the heart of our project today.

Located right next to the Sumatran rainforest, the 3-hectare site was built almost entirely from sustainable and natural materials, including recycled plastic waste. It combines several solutions in one place: removing plastic from nature, creating local jobs, providing environmental education and developing sustainable alternatives together with the local community.

Today, the Recycling Village includes our Trash Bank, Green Education Center, Co-Working Office, Community Sports Field, Compost House, Sanitary House, Recycling Marketplace and several other public facilities.

But volunteering with Project Wings goes far beyond the Recycling Village. As most of the village has already been built, our volunteers today support our local team across four main areas:

🌿 Conservation

Help in our organic gardens, botanical garden and tree nursery, where we grow seedlings for future planting activities. Depending on current projects, you can also join tree-planting campaigns or accompany our local rangers into and around the Gunung Leuser National Park and learn more about rainforest conservation.

♻️ Waste Management

Experience how waste management works in a region where this infrastructure is still developing. Join our team on waste collection routes through surrounding communities, help sort and process plastic at our Trash Bank and learn how collected waste can be recycled and turned into new products.

🌱 Green Education

Support our team with environmental education for children and young people. You can accompany lessons and workshops, help prepare activities, contribute your own ideas and, depending on the situation, even lead parts of a session yourself.

🏡 Recycling Village

There is still plenty to do in the Recycling Village. Since many buildings are made from bamboo, clay and other natural materials, maintenance and renovation are an ongoing part of the project. You might help repair buildings, work with natural construction materials, improve outdoor areas or support smaller projects around the site. Ecobricks are still part of our work and educational approach, but producing them is no longer a regular volunteer activity.

No two volunteer experiences are exactly the same

Your tasks depend on which projects are currently running and where our local team needs support most. This means you won’t spend your entire stay doing one repetitive task, but instead get the chance to experience different parts of our work.

And probably one of the most special parts of volunteering with us is working side by side with our local Indonesian team every day. You don’t just visit Sumatra, you become part of the daily life of the project and get a firsthand insight into the local culture, different ways of living and working, and everyday life in Indonesia.

You work together, learn from each other and experience the country in a way that goes much deeper than simply travelling through it. For many of our volunteers, this cultural exchange becomes one of the most memorable parts of their time with us.

Whether you’re planting trees, working in the gardens, sorting plastic at the Trash Bank, joining an education activity or helping maintain the Recycling Village. Your time with Project Wings is about getting involved, learning and experiencing environmental work where it actually happens.