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Residents angry over imported waste ending up in Bekasi
Madih, head of local neighborhood unit in the village said he was shocked to discover the trash right in front of his house after waking up one morning in May.
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Two scavengers collect trash at the Burangkeng dump site in Burangkeng, a village in Bekasi regency, West Java, on Thursday. Around 500 meters away from the site residents have found a mound of what they suspect to be imported waste. (JP/Budi Sutrisno)
D
adang, 35, a scavenger living in Burangkeng village in Setu distict, Bekasi regency in West Java was puzzled when he found unusual trash during his regular search in the village, located some 41 kilometers away from the capital city Jakarta.
The 1.5-meter high mound of trash was found to contain foreign products and some plastic bank cards. The trash was dumped in a vacant lot some 500 meters from the official dumpsite site in the village.
Dadang questioned how the foreign trash ended up in his neighborhood, asking why the authorities would allow such imported waste from overseas to end up in the country.
“While many think the issue is the plastic waste mixed up in the imported trash, I actually question why this country should import trash at all,” he said on Thursday.
Madih, head of local neighborhood unit in the village said he was shocked to discover the trash right in front of his house after waking up one morning in May.
The 30-year-old said that the trash pile consisted of inorganic waste allegedly discarded by a paper production factory in neighboring West Cikarang district.
“We used to sell our collected cardboard and paper for the factory’s intermediate materials,” he said.
