If we don't take the risk, well, then we don't eat.
At the edge of Jakarta, a mountain of refuse called Bantar Gebang has long served as both the city's wound and its informal economy — a place where thousands of families have built entire lives from what the metropolis discards. Now, under pressure to modernize its waste systems and shed an image of environmental neglect, the Indonesian government has set a 2027 deadline to close Asia's largest landfill, promising incinerators and segregation in its place. But the infrastructure does not yet exist, the precedent from Bali's failed closure attempt is sobering, and the people who depend on this landscape for survival have been offered no path forward. What is framed as environmental progress may, for the most vulnerable, arrive as catastrophe.
- A trash mound collapse in February 2026 killed seven workers, exposing the lethal conditions thousands navigate daily just to earn $8–16 and feed their families.
- President Prabowo's declared 'war on waste' has set a hard 2027 closure deadline for Bantar Gebang, threatening to erase the only income source for an entire informal workforce with no transition plan in sight.
- When Bali attempted a similar landfill closure in April, waste flooded streets and rivers within days, forcing an immediate reversal — a warning Jakarta's planners cannot afford to ignore.
- The replacement infrastructure — over thirty waste-to-energy plants and nationwide sorting systems — remains unbuilt, underfunded, and years away from operational readiness.
- Thousands of waste pickers, some of whom have worked the site since childhood and built families and futures from its refuse, face economic erasure with no retraining, no safety net, and no alternative being prepared for them.
Forty kilometers from Jakarta's center, Bantar Gebang stretches across more than a hundred hectares — garbage mountains that from a distance resemble rolling hills. Up close, the illusion collapses into smell, contaminated runoff, and the constant procession of orange trucks delivering eight thousand tons of waste each day. Moving through it all are thousands of people, hooks in hand, searching for anything that can be sold.
Rasta, fifty-five, has spent his life here. Earlier this year, a trash mound collapsed without warning, killing seven of his fellow workers. He speaks of it with tears and resignation in equal measure. "If we don't take the risk, we don't eat," he says. It is not metaphor. Andi, twenty-nine, and his wife Winah, who has worked the site since childhood, earn enough each day to school their children and keep food on the table. Karmidi, thirty-two, works the night shift — more dangerous, navigating bulldozers in darkness — because he values being his own boss. Rustini spent thirty years here determined that her children would not. Everything she salvaged went toward their education. One child now works in Taiwan. Another is bound for Japan.
The Indonesian government is now preparing to dismantle the system that sustains all of them. Bantar Gebang is well over capacity, and after South Korean officials publicly called Bali "dirty," President Prabowo declared a national war on waste. The environment ministry has ordered landfills practicing open dumping to phase out, with Bantar Gebang set to close to general waste by end of 2027. The plan calls for organic and recyclable separation, and eventually incineration in waste-to-energy plants — more than thirty planned across Indonesia.
The precedent, however, is alarming. When Bali's Suwung landfill closed to organic waste in April, the system collapsed within days. Trash piled up on streets and in rivers; toxic burning followed. Local authorities reversed course almost immediately. Waste management expert Nur Azizah is direct: close Bantar Gebang without working alternatives, and "you will see waste everywhere."
The replacement infrastructure — sorting facilities, incineration plants, segregation systems — does not yet exist. And for the thousands whose survival depends on this landfill, there is no transition plan, no retraining, no alternative income being prepared. Andi puts it plainly: "If it closes, what choice is there?" For him and thousands like him, that question has no comfortable answer.
Forty kilometers from Jakarta's center, Bantar Gebang sprawls across more than a hundred hectares—a landscape of garbage mountains that from a distance might pass for rolling hills. Up close, the illusion collapses. The smell is overwhelming, a putrid thickness that hangs in the tropical air. Black streams of contaminated runoff wind between the peaks of refuse. Flies swarm in clouds above the constant procession of bright orange trucks, each one delivering another load from the city. Every single day, about eight thousand tons of waste arrives here on fourteen hundred vehicles. And every single day, thousands of people move through this landscape with hooks and bare hands, searching for anything that can be sold.
Rasta is fifty-five. He has spent his life pulling salvageable materials from the garbage at Bantar Gebang. Earlier this year, a massive trash mound collapsed without warning, burying seven people alive. When he speaks about it now, his eyes fill with tears. But he also speaks with a kind of resignation that comes from having no other choice. "It's just our risk here," he says. "If we don't take the risk, well, then we don't eat." This is not metaphor. This is the actual mathematics of survival for thousands of families whose entire income depends on what they can extract from this landfill.
Andi is twenty-nine. His wife Winah is forty-three and was born in a village adjacent to the dump site; she has worked here since she was a child. Together they earn between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand rupiah each day—roughly eight to sixteen Australian dollars. That money pays for their children's schooling and their food. Andi acknowledges the work is not pleasant, but he finds something sustaining in the camaraderie of it. Workers joke with each other as trucks rumble past in endless convoys. When someone spots a prized Aqua-branded water bottle—plastic that commands a higher price per kilogram—they shout out in celebration. Karmidi started at the site when he was ten years old. Now thirty-two, married with two young children, he works at night when it is cooler but far more dangerous, maneuvering between dump trucks and bulldozers and excavators in darkness with nothing but a hooked pole called a ganco. He says he values being his own boss, providing for his family without a supervisor. "The trash does not stop," he says, meaning the work is always there.
Rustini has spent more than thirty years collecting recyclables from this landfill. She was determined that her children would not follow her into this work. Everything she earned—from the smallest scraps of waste—went toward their education. One of her children now works in Taiwan. Another is preparing to move to Japan. She speaks of being "incredibly proud" of what she has managed to give them, all of it sourced from the garbage beneath her feet.
Now the Indonesian government is preparing to dismantle the system that sustains all of these people. Bantar Gebang is well over capacity. The site has grown as Jakarta's population has swelled, becoming a receptacle for every kind of waste the city produces. In February, President Prabowo Subianto declared a national "war" on waste after South Korean leaders described the tourist island of Bali as "dirty." The environment ministry has ordered local governments to phase out all landfills that practice open dumping. The plan is to close Bantar Gebang to general waste by the end of 2027, gradually shifting away from open dumping and toward a system where organic and recyclable materials are separated before disposal. Eventually, the site will receive only "residual waste," which will be incinerated in a massive waste-to-energy plant—a facility that burns rubbish in a controlled environment to generate electricity. The government is planning more than thirty such plants across Indonesia, including in Bali, where construction has already begun.
But the timeline is precarious, and the precedent is troubling. In Bali, when the Suwung landfill closed to organic waste in April, the system collapsed almost immediately. Unsorted trash piled up on streets, in fields, in rivers. Much of it was burned, creating a toxic haze across parts of the island. The local government was forced to reverse course within days, allowing organic waste back at the landfill several times a week. Nur Azizah, a waste management expert from Gadjah Mada University, is blunt about the risk: if Bantar Gebang closes "without alternatives, then game over, you will see waste everywhere."
The campaigners and experts questioning the government's plan point out that waste-to-energy plants will cost billions of dollars and require proper waste segregation—something rarely practiced in Indonesia. The infrastructure does not yet exist. The sorting facilities are not built. The incineration plants are not operational. And the thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on Bantar Gebang have no transition plan, no retraining program, no alternative income source being prepared for them.
Andi, the waste picker who earns enough to feed his children and send them to school, speaks about his fears with clarity. "I have hopes to make our kids happy, making sure they have enough," he says. "If it closes, what choice is there?" This is not a rhetorical question. For him and for thousands like him, the closure of Bantar Gebang without a functioning alternative system means the collapse of their ability to survive.
Citações Notáveis
If it closes, what choice is there?— Andi, waste picker at Bantar Gebang
If the site is closed without alternatives, then game over, you will see waste everywhere.— Nur Azizah, waste management expert from Gadjah Mada University
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does this landfill matter so much to the government right now, when it's been operating for decades?
Because the waste crisis has become visible in ways it wasn't before. Bali is a tourist destination—when international visitors see garbage in the streets, it becomes a national embarrassment. And young Indonesians are increasingly angry about polluted rivers and beaches. The government needed to act, so they declared war on waste. But they declared it without building the alternative systems first.
The waste pickers—are they organized? Do they have any voice in what happens next?
The source doesn't mention any organized response from them. They're individuals and families, working independently, each trying to survive. That's actually part of what makes them vulnerable. There's no collective power to negotiate with the government about what comes next.
What happened in Bali seems like a direct warning. Why would Jakarta proceed the same way?
That's the question everyone should be asking. The Bali closure was only a few months ago. The waste piled up, the air became toxic, and they had to reverse the decision. But the government's timeline for Jakarta hasn't changed. They still want closure by the end of 2027. It suggests either confidence that they can do it differently, or a willingness to accept chaos as the cost of change.
Is there any chance the waste pickers could transition into the new system—working at sorting facilities, for instance?
The source doesn't address that. It mentions that sorting facilities need to be established, but there's no discussion of hiring or training the people who currently work at the landfill. That silence is telling. It suggests the government hasn't thought about them as part of the solution.
What does Andi's question—"If it closes, what choice is there?"—really mean?
It means he has no safety net. He has no savings, no other skills that employers value, no unemployment insurance. His choice is to work at the landfill or to have nothing. If the landfill closes and there's no alternative, his family doesn't eat. That's not metaphorical. That's his actual situation.