Wednesday, August 30, 2006

The garbage collector



... with his pushcart, as seen from our fourth-floor balcony. He'll dump your stuff into the wagon and sort through it on the spot, so if you have anything embarrassing to get rid of, better sneak it into the neighbors' trash!

The semi-opaque blue thing is the awning over our front steps, and the high front walls and gate are standard for Jakarta.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

is this how garbage is collected throughout jakarta? any trucks or motorized vehicles at all? seems like you'd need a small army with pushcarts to cover a city that size.

Trish said...

I've seen garbage trucks at the marketplace near work, so they definitely exist. Pushcarts may actually be more efficient on all the little networks of narrow side streets, which are barely wide enough for trucks (and in many neighborhoods not wide enough at all).

There is definitely a small army of people dealing with the trash using pushcarts or just big bags. Some are designated trash collectors, like this guy, but most are trash-pickers. Several of them come down our street every day. The ones with carts also accept recyclables directly from the residents. They'll call out 'barang, barang' (things, things), and people come out and give them cans and newspapers. That's got to be a really tough existence.

Trish said...

Plus a lot of the trash just gets heaped by the road and burned ... probably more than ever sees a landfill or recycling facility.