Sight of a Mountain of Rubbish in Duren Village, Tangerang, with Overpowering Odour and Many Maggots

TANGERANG, KOMPAS.com - A towering pile of rubbish has mounted on an empty plot in the Duren Village Complex, Pedurenan, Karang Tengah, Tangerang City.

Kompas.com observations at the site on Thursday (26/3/2026) revealed a pungent odour emanating from the rubbish heap, detectable from up to 50 metres away.

Used plastic, food wrappers, discarded clothing, cardboard, and other household waste filled the approximately 5x10 metre plot.

Leachate pools, blackened in colour, flowed into lower-lying ground around the location. This condition made the surrounding area muddy and slippery.

One local resident, Ronal (24), said the foul smell from the rubbish mountain was particularly overpowering during the rainy season.

“When it’s raining, it really stinks. Especially if the rubbish gets soaked and isn’t collected until the next day, the smell is unbearable,” Ronal told Kompas.com when met at the site on Thursday (26/3/2026).

Ronal explained that the rubbish piling up on the empty plot is normally collected by sanitation workers every morning. However, since the first day of Eid until now, the rubbish has remained piled up.

“This seems to be after Eid; maybe the workers were on holiday, so it accumulated,” he said.

Ronal hopes that sanitation workers will soon resume regular collections to prevent the environmental conditions from deteriorating further.

“If it’s left like this, it could get worse, especially since it’s near the road. The smell spreads everywhere,” he said.

He mentioned that there were operational adjustments during the Eid holiday period, leading to delays in waste collection.

“In principle, we are continuously working to address it. There may have been a slowdown in collections yesterday because some personnel were rotated due to Eid,” said Wawan Fauzi when confirmed by Kompas.com on Thursday.

Nevertheless, Wawan assured that since Wednesday (25/3/2026), all workers have returned to normal operations, and the waste collection process is being accelerated, including in the Duren Village Complex.

“Today, we are working to resolve it,” he stated.