Robert Go, Jakarta – It's just trash for most people, but some Jakarta residents are finding novel ways of using garbage to help build their impoverished community.

With the help of the international aid group Mercy Corps and quick-drying cement, residents of a slum in Jelambar, West Jakarta, are turning organic garbage – banana peels, pieces of cloth, cigarette cartons – into cheap bricks.

Mr Karno, the community's elder, said: "There's so much trash around here. It makes sense to put it to work." Activist Bambang Darsono, who has lived and worked in the 30,000-strong community for two years, added: "We have a garbage-collection programme already in place. Two months ago, we came up with a good idea for the trash."

The process of making a "Mercy Brick" is simple but labour-intensive: Litter is sorted and chopped up, mixed with cement and sand, and then hand-poured and packed into the moulds. After a few minutes, the mould is removed and the still-wet brick is left to be baked by the sun.

"Everyone pitches in. Some kids get assigned to watch out for chickens, which seem to like the taste of the wet bricks and have ruined a few pieces by pecking at them," said Mr Bambang.

At around 250 rupiah (four Singapore cents) each, the bricks are a much cheaper alternative to commercially sold building blocks, priced at more than 1,000 rupiah a piece.

For this community of fruit sellers, rickshaw drivers and street vendors, where the average monthly income is merely 250,000 rupiah and the richest families share 4-m-by-5-m rooms without indoor plumbing or toilets, the bricks could materialise into much-needed riverside public restrooms, health clinics or schools.

Mercy Corps architect Anna Suzanna said: "The bricks are being tested now for strength and safety. "If the quality is good enough, we can use them to build more facilities and perhaps start a small business for the community."

Mr Karno and his friends already have other plans related to the trash-to-bricks scheme. In addition to adding to the two brick moulds it now has, the community wants to use the same raw mixture to make batako – small, multi-coloured cement blocks often used here for sidewalks and driveways. Mr Karno said: "I think batako would sell better. People may not like living or working inside buildings made out of these bricks, but there is nothing wrong with walking on them."

For Mr Allister Clewlow, Mercy Corps' Jakarta manager, this is the ideal kind of project for helping Indonesia's urban poor. "It is not just a hand-out programme," he said. "We distribute 5,000 tons of food each year, but initiatives like this also help the communities in other ways. "The brick project is good because it gives the community a sense of self-empowerment and hope for the future."