TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Tangerang area trash pickers are up in arms over the local government’s recent decision to relocate most of the Soekarno-Hatta Airport’s garbage disposal to Krawang, some distance away in West Java provincial territory. For more than a month now, scavengers who previously relied on the airlines’ saleable garbage – plastics, bottles, paper and aluminum – for their livelihood, have been idle. They made a pretty good income by selling 160 cubic meters of recyclable waste or 13 trucks-full, by selling them to middlemen, who then re-sell them to companies re-processing the trash for re-use. But as a result of a dispute between the Tangerang and the airport authorities over the mounting undisposed garbage around the Tangerang area – especially the stinking organic garbage which remains unpicked – the decision was made to relocate their disposal to Krawang. The airport authorities do have three garbage incinerators, but they are either malfunctioning or overloaded. It also seems there is a mafia – as in most money-making sectors – that seems to be dominating this area’s garbage industry, and hence the dispute. “The good garbage are sent to Krawang, and we’re left with the stinking waste,” complained Darmawan to Koran Tempo, one of the trash pickers in Tangerang. Soekarno-Hatta management authorities promised to settle the problem to everyone’s satisfaction.
YULI ISMARTONO
