A waste picker drinks water from a plastic bag as she looks for recyclable items in a pile of garbage at the Bantargebang landfill on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, July 6. AP-Yonhap
BANTARGEBANG, Indonesia — Long before dawn breaks over Indonesia ’s largest landfill, Nur Wencih joins thousands of waste pickers climbing mountains of garbage, searching for anything they can sell.
The 35-year-old widow has worked at the site on Jakarta’s eastern edge for two decades, following her parents, who still earn a living there. The Bantargebang landfill has paid for food and rent while helping her two teenage daughters living with a relative in a rural village. She hopes her daughters will never have to follow the same path.
Living alone in a rented room near the landfill, Wencih earns about 200,000 rupiah ($12) on a good day collecting discarded toys, cardboard and plastic bottles before bulldozers bury them beneath fresh waste. Occasionally, she finds gold jewelry.
“It feels like hitting a jackpot,” Wencih said while taking a break from the sweltering July heat.
