Where sorting plastic trash equals to good money
Print Edition
His weathered face breaks out in a big grin as Keman explains how sifting through rubbish paid for his children鈥檚 education, one of many in his Indonesian hometown basking in a waste-picking boom.
Governments around the world are grappling with how to tackle the scourge of single-use plastic, but for the people of Bangun trash equals cash.
Around two-thirds of the town鈥檚 residents eke out a living sorting and selling discarded plastic bottles, wrappers and cups back to local companies.
鈥淚 have three kids 鈥 all of them go to university,鈥 Keman, who goes by one name, said as he stood in a field of ankle-deep trash. 鈥淎nd all that was possible thanks to my hard work scavenging rubbish,鈥 the 52-year-old said.
Bangun is among several poor communities in Java, Indonesia鈥檚 most populous island, which have carved a living from mining waste, much of it from Western nations including the United States, England, and Belgium, as well as the Middle East.
Indonesia鈥檚 plastic waste imports have soared in the past few years, jumping from 10,000 tons per month in late 2017 to 35,000 tons per month by late last year, according to Greenpeace, which warns that plastics prosperity comes at a huge environmental and public health cost.
Up to 40 dump trucks a day rumble into Bangun to unload garbage outside people鈥檚 homes or in vast fields where it forms mountains of waste sometimes as high as rooftops.
Residents search through the refuse with their bare hands, rakes and shovels 鈥 often with little more protection than cheap cloth masks.
There are few other jobs going and community leader M. Ikhsan brushed off any suggestion that his town鈥檚 large-scale scavenging damaged the environment or put people鈥檚 health at risk.
Rubbish that can鈥檛 be recycled was sold to nearby tofu factories where it is used as fuel in furnaces, he said.
鈥淭his waste is extremely profitable for my citizens and has helped boost the local economy,鈥 Ikhsan said.
Indonesia has stepped up monitoring of imported waste in recent months as part of a pushback against becoming a dumping ground for foreign trash.
It has sent back containers loaded with a mixture of domestic garbage, plastic waste and hazardous materials in violation of import rules.
But the view from places like Bangun is decidedly different.
鈥淩ubbish is like treasure here,鈥 Keman said.
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