Empowering Coastal Communities through Crab Shell Waste Valorization: A Community-Based Environmental Conservation Program in Cirebon, Indonesia

Abstract

Blue swimming crab (rajungan) is the main catch in Citemu Village, a coastal village in Mundu Sub-district, Cirebon Regency, Indonesia. Residents boil the crabs and pick the meat, and the shells are left as waste that gives off a strong odor and attracts flies. This community service program aimed to document the local baseline of shell waste and assets, to teach a simple shell-processing sequence, and to include an environmental theology perspective in the training. The program applied an asset-based community development (ABCD) approach in six stages in 2024, namely observation, an environmental education workshop, three seminars, and evaluation. Twenty-six representatives of village institutions, neighborhood units, and fisher business groups took part. Data came from field observation, an interview with the village head, training materials, photographs, and attendance and expense records, and were analyzed descriptively. The results show that observation recorded about five fiberglass containers of shells per production house each week and three existing destinations for shells (dumped, sold wet, or sold dried). Participants were trained in drying and disk-mill grinding of shells, and village youths produced shell powder intended as poultry feed material in a milling trial. The training presented waste as part of creation that should not be wasted. Knowledge change, shell volume, production yield, income, and environmental quality were not measured. In conclusion, the program shows that a low-cost processing sequence can be taught and demonstrated with local assets. Its effect on waste and income remains untested, and the nutritional quality and safety of the powder require laboratory and feeding evaluation.