Bantar Gebang scavengers find rotten meat

Dozens of scavengers at Bantar Gebang dump in Bekasi municipality found tons of rotten meat on Sunday, which was unloaded from two container trucks.

"We suspect that the trucks came from Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta," Nurdin, head of Bantar Gebang Scavengers Community, was quoted as saying by Antara news agency.

On Sunday morning, dozens of scavengers were combing through garbage, looking for items that could be recycled, in zone IV of the dump when they noticed a horrible stench, other than the usual smell of rotting garbage.

They tracked down the putrid smell until they found chunks of rotten meat scattered around the zone.

Some scavengers reported their finding to Bantar Gebang Police who immediately sent some officers to the scene.

Bantar Gebang Police chief Adj. Comr. Didik Soekamto said that he suspected the meat came from container trucks from Tanjung Priok. "But we can't calculate the exact amount of the rotten meat yet."

"I have instructed my officers and asked help from local authorities to have the rotten meat buried this afternoon," he said on Sunday.

He added that Bantar Gebang Police would look into the possibility that the meat might have been illegally imported.

Information gathered from witnesses at the scene revealed that six container trucks had entered the dump in the early hours of Sunday.

The witnesses said that four of the six trucks left the dump almost immediately, while the other two departed later.

The scavengers suspected the four container trucks did not unload the contents as they were afraid of drawing too much attention.

Container trucks would indeed draw the attention of locals as usually only dump trucks enter the site, which is used by the Jakarta administration to dump 6,000 tons of trash daily. -- JP