Garbagemen distressed by current situation
Garbagemen distressed by current situation
JAKARTA: Closure of the Bantar Gebang dump site in Bekasi,
West Java, has also affected about 5,000 garbage collectors right
across the city.
They have become unemployed and face financial hardship since
Monday's closure.
On Thursday the city administration was still undecided on
where to dump its garbage, totaling 25,000 cubic meters per day.
It has yet to identify a new dump site to replace the Bantar
Gebang dump.
According to Asep, one of the collectors, all garbage
collectors are paid on a daily basis. Therefore they have not
earned a cent for the last couple of days because they have done
no work.
"Since Tuesday, we have not collected any garbage because we
don't know where to unload it," he told The Jakarta Post.
A day before, Asep said, his group had collected garbage from
East Jakarta and loaded it onto a truck. However, the truck
could not dispose of it because Bantar Gebang was closed down,
while a transit dump site in Sunter, North Jakarta, also rejected
it.
"We were paid our wage for that day although we failed to dump
the garbage," he said thankfully.
Asep's friend, Jiman, asserted that the situation had really
affected them, particularly due to the upcoming Idul Fitri
holiday. He said that he needed more money to celebrate it.
"Why did the Bekasi administration close the site at this
time? And why did the city administration fail to determine a
new site quickly?" said Jiman, who comes from East Java.
Currently, about five thousand people work as garbage
collectors, serving the city by taking the material to dump
sites.
Their livelihood, therefore, depends on the garbage that the
city produces daily. Furthermore, residents here cannot survive
without them, as otherwise, the city would disappear beneath
heaps of garbage.
Some garbage collectors work for the city sanitation agency
while others are employed by private companies hired by the
agency to deal with the garbage. Most of the workers are young
men.
They are paid Rp 7,500 to Rp 10,000 per day. Usually they work
from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The office disburses the money after they
have finished each day.
Besides the dirt, the collectors must cope with bad smells and
bacteria. However, most of them claim they get used to it after
doing the job for a few weeks.
Most collectors said that the wage was insufficient, even for
a single man. According to Jiman, it could only cover his daily
expenditure on food and transportation.
"I think they should pay us more. Nobody wants to do the dirty
jobs," he remarked, adding that he had to do it as he had failed
to find any other employment.