Life among Jakarta's garbage mountains: the waste pickers of Bantar Gebang

On the outskirts of Jakarta, huge rolling peaks of rubbish stretch across more than 100 hectares, towering over nearby villages. Each day a convoy of trucks plows in and dumps more garbage into Bantar Gebang, one of Asia's largest landfills. The Guardian published an in-depth feature on the lives of the thousands of people who live and work there, picking through the waste to salvage scraps they can sell.

The work is dangerous. Earlier this year, seven people died when a massive trash mound caved in and buried them alive. The site is a stark illustration of Jakarta's waste crisis: the city of more than 11 million people produces thousands of tons of garbage every day, and most of it ends up here, in a sprawling dump where the Indonesian government is struggling to manage waste safely. The feature follows waste pickers who earn a meager living sorting through other people's trash, searching for plastic, metal, and cardboard they can sell to recyclers.

The article captures a hidden world just outside the capital. Children play near the waste slopes, families live in makeshift shelters close to the stinking mounds, and the smell of rotting garbage is constant. Indonesia's government says it is working on new waste management strategies, but the landfill keeps growing. What makes the story remarkable is not just the scale, it is the people who live there every day, surviving on what others throw away.

Why it matters

If you live in Jakarta, your trash ends up here, and the people who pick through it are part of a system that keeps the city running but offers them almost nothing in return. The deaths earlier this year and this Guardian feature put pressure on Jakarta's government to show it can manage waste safely, not just pile it higher. Watch whether the city moves faster on recycling and landfill safety rules, because the alternative is more accidents and a growing mountain that nobody can ignore.