Bantar Gebang, Jakarta’s largest landfill, sits on more than 100 hectares and receives about 8,000 tons of rubbish daily delivered by roughly 1,400 trucks. Thousands of people live on the site’s fringe and salvage recyclables for income; workers quoted include Rasta, 55, Andi, 29, his wife Winah, 43, Rustini who has worked there for more than three decades, and Karmidi, 32, who began at age 10. The site is hazardous: black streams of contaminated leachate and swarms of flies permeate the area, and earlier this year seven people died when a trash mound collapsed. Individual daily earnings reported range from about 100,000 to 200,000 rupiah, which workers say covers food and schooling. Indonesia’s government says it will gradually close the overcapacity site from next year as it grapples with Jakarta’s swelling waste, raising immediate questions about where the city’s rubbish will go and how thousands of waste pickers will replace their livelihoods.
