S

ukatma, 34, still shivers whenever he remembers the body of a newborn baby he found recently in Baru River in Jagakarsa, South Jakarta, during his daily routine as one of the workers for the water unit with the Jakarta Environment Agency.

“Last month, we found the body of a newborn baby here among the trash. We immediately reported our finding to our supervisor, who in turn told the local neighborhood unit [RT] and the police,” Sukatma told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Sukatma and his 60-odd coworkers are tasked with cleaning 15 rivers and canals as well as two lakes in Jagakarsa. They literally get their hands dirty by scooping up trash from the water.

“The agency provides us with tools like rakes, sickles, hoes, ropes, gloves, boots and more,” Sukatma said.

He said the workers usually surveyed the rivers and lakes before installing orange buoys to trap the trash, which they then scoop out by hand while dipping in the water.

The cleaners also set up bamboo poles to trap any trash passing the buoys as well as a net to trap smaller trash and debris. They take out the net at the end of the day when it is full of trash and debris.

The Jakarta Environment Agency has revealed that the city currently only recycles a rather disappointing 5 percent of the 7,000 tons of garbage produced in the capital every day, because of a lack of public awareness about waste management.

The Jakarta Public Works Agency said 20 percent of the waste was dumped in the city’s rivers and canals.

Sukatma’s co-worker Wandi Setiawan, 27, found a large sound-system speaker while scavenging trash in Baru River.

“At first I thought it was just a portable plastic bathtub, because it was floating on the river. When we took it out, it turned out to be a speaker,” Wandi said.

Wandi said he regularly found flower pots, backpacks and mattresses in the water. “Sometimes I find kapok [java cotton] mattresses, sponge mattresses or spring bed mattresses, which can be dangerous, because the broken springs may prick us,” Wandi said.

Another worker, Yayat Muhtar, 48, said most of what he scooped out of the rivers was common household trash. However, he noted that almost every day he would find used diapers, floating around individually or in big sacks.

“We look at [used] diapers in rivers every morning, just like other people look at nasi uduk [coconut steamed rice] for breakfast,” Yayat said joking.

For the workers who have to dip in Jakarta’s polluted rivers to scoop out trash, skin problems have become part of the job.

“If there is a problem with our skin, we usually use a skin lotion to treat it, or we apply a mosquito repellent lotion to our skin before we dip into the river,” he said.

He added that the workers were also covered by the Workers Social Security Insurance (BPJS Ketengakerjaan) in case of any work accident.

Rusdi, the Jagakarsa supervisor for the water unit of the Jakarta Environment Agency, said 66 workers were stationed in Jagakarsa to clean 15 rivers and canals as well as the lakes of Mangga Bolong and Babakan.

“In one spot, the workers collect about 8 to 12 cubic meters of trash,” Rusdi said.

He added that the trash fished out from the bodies of water was transported to a temporary dump site on Jl. Perintis Kemerdekaan in North Jakarta before finally being dumped at the massive Bantar Gebang landfill site in Bekasi, West Java. (ami)