comparison of recycling activities at landfills in indonesia
COMPARISON OF RECYCLING ACTIVITIES AT LANDFILLS IN INDONESIA AND MALAYSIA K. WATANABE*, S. SASAKI*, K.G. TIEW**, D. IRWAN** * Teikyo University, 359 Otsuka Hachioji 1920395 Japan ** National University of Malaysia, Bangi Selangor 43200 Malaysia.
SUMMARY: The situation of on-site recycling at landfills in Malaysia was investigated. Although Malaysia's per capita GDP is three times that of Indonesia, waste picking at landfills is still economically feasible. The reason for this is that in Indonesia, the main recovered item is plastic bags as more valuable items are removed before the waste arrives to the landfill, while in Malaysia items such as PET bottles and metal cans are abundant in landfills, thus the waste pickers can earn a higher income. The authorities should make active efforts in supporting recycling at more upstream of the material flow so that recovering of materials at landfills will be unnecessary.
1. INTRODUCTION We can infer that as economy develops, recycling becomes less feasible under market economy. This is because labour wages increase with economic development, while the price of secondary materials is more or less universal, following the world market price. Eventually the labour cost for material recovery will exceed the revenue from recovered materials. It could probably be said that the relationship between economic development and the recycling rate follows an "inverse Kuznets curve" as shown in Fig 1. In the early stage of development, resource prices are relatively high compared to labour wages, and recycling happens "naturally" under the function of the market economy. As economy develops, labour costs will increase and make certain recycling operations unprofitable, thus recycling rate drops. With the further development of the economy, increased environmental awareness of the public leads to higher environmental standards and higher costs of disposal as well as subsidies for recycling. This will cause the recycling rate to rise again. Indonesia and Vietnam mentioned below can be hypothesised to be towards the right of the diagram, while Malaysia can be located around the centre, and Europe, North America and Japan at the left end. For example, Futamatsu et al (2011) conducted an economical analysis on the recycling of PET bottles by junk buyers in Hanoi, Vietnam, and concluded that when the wages increase by two-fold, the currently functioning system will come to a dead end. Sasaki et al (2014) investigated in details the situation of waste pickers in Bantar Gebang landfill in the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, and expressed doubts on the future of this activity; in the past the waste pickers earned much more than the minimum wage, but now the minimum wage has caught up with the level of income of the waste pickers. On the other hand, the presence of landfill waste pickers is still noted in Malaysia (Watanabe et al 2015, Teik 2011, Thevadass 2014), where the wages exceed by far the levels in Hanoi or Jakarta.
Proceedings Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium/ 2 - 6 October 2017 S. Margherita di Pula, Cagliari, Italy / © 2017 by CISA Publisher, Italy
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
In February and August 2016, we have conducted an investigation on the situation of on-site recycling activities at the landfills of Malaysia (GDP/cap $10,538), and compared it with that of Indonesia (GDP/cap $3,475) which has 1/3 the GDP per capita.
Fig. 1 The Recycling Inverse Kuznets Curve
2. CASE STUDIES We gathered information on which landfills still have on-site recycling activities, from Malaysian waste operators and local authority officers, and were able to make site visits to three of them. 2.1 Landfill A Landfill A is was constructed amidst a palm oil plantation in 1996 as an "interim landfill" by the local authority. The landfill is equipped with a leachate pond and wastewater treatment. Two neighbouring local authorities also send their waste to this landfill. 600t/day of municipal waste is delivered. The landfill is nearing its capacity, but the authorities plan to use this until 2019. Every day around 10-20 waste pickers operate in this landfill. There are two "leaders" who connect the waste pickers to the secondary material dealers. The site managers allow them to come into the site with their lorries twice a week and they carry out the recyclate they had bought from the waste pickers. The main items collected are hard plastics such as PET bottles and metal items such as aluminium cans. About 30t per month of items are carried out from the landfill and recycled. There is a depot located a few kilometres from the landfill where the items are temporarily stocked, and a larger vehicle comes regularly to transport them further. The access to landfill is free. There is no perimeter fence and one can access the landfill not only from the main gate. The managers prohibit children from scavenging activities, and that is well enforced. The managers maintain a good relationship with the waste pickers, and the waste pickers cooperate with the management, for example in detecting potentially hazardous waste brought into the landfill. Hard plastics are separated into PET and others, and each fetch
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
about 50sen/kg (US$ 0.15). According to the landfill managers, the daily earning of waste pickers is approximately RM100 (US$ 30). One of the waste pickers responded to our interview used to be a labourer at a palm oil plantation, but was laid off because of his high age, and decided to come to this landfill to earn his living.
Fig. 2 Waste picker at landfill A
Fig. 3 The main item collected is PET bottles
2.2 Landfill B This is an open dump established in 1997. It was planned to operate until 2010, but as of 2016 it was still accepting 250t/day of municipal waste and waste from light industries. There are about 10-15 waste pickers operating daily, and the total number is about 30. Our interviewee owns a motorbike and commutes from a nearby village. She collects about 100120kg of hard plastics and metals and sells them to a dealer located just outside the landfill site. The dealer has a roofed storage space, and is equipped with a bailing machine. Our interviewee earns about RM60-70/day (US$ 20). She has observed some children coming to pick in this landfill after school. 2.3 Landfill C Landfill C qualifies as Level 3 Sanitary Landfill. It was originally constructed in the 1980s and accepts 1700-1800t/day of municipal waste. It is owned by the local authority, and operated by a private company. The current company took over the operation in 2012. 200 waste pickers used to operate from the time before the current company took over, and their vested privilege is respected. Landfill C has a perimeter fence, and access is controlled at the main gate. They register the waste pickers, and only those who are registered are allowed to enter the landfill for picking. Currently there are about 100-120 registered pickers, and around 40-50 of them can be seen in daily operation. These pickers commute by motorcycles from villages nearby. The managing company charges the waste pickers for entry to the landfill, and also receives some concession from the secondary material dealers that come in to purchase the recyclables from the waste pickers. There is another on-site recycling activity going on at this landfill site. There is a recycling pilot plant where about 50t/day of waste is run through a belt conveyor, and employed workers extract recyclable materials by hand (Fig. 5). The initial plan was to hire the waste pickers at this plant, but none of the waste pickers came for the job. Apparently the wages were not in par
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
with the current earnings, and the waste pickers did not like the idea of being controlled with a fixed working hour. Hence the operators had to recruit immigrant labourers to run the plant. As the operator wanted to demonstrate the waste reduction effect of this plant, items that are not economically attractive are also collected, such as soft plastics and soiled cardboard. Therefore the current economic viability of this facility is not high. At this landfill, there is also a facility to wash and pelletise Polyethylene soft plastics (plastic shopping bags), this way they manage to sell the pellets derived from soft plastics to secondary plastics dealers (untreated plastic bags have such a low value they won't be treated as a commodity).
Fig. 4 Landfill C
Fig. 5 Sorting facility at landfill C
3. COMPARISON WITH BANTAR GEBANG LANDFILL, INDONESIA The cases in Malaysia are compared with that of Bantar Gebang landfill in Indonesia, where Sasaki et al (2014) conducted an intensive study on waste picker activities. An analysis was made as to why informal on-site recycling at landfill is still feasible in Malaysia where living costs and wages are significantly higher. In Indonesia, items with higher value such as PET bottles and metals are picked out of the waste stream at various stages before the waste ends up at the landfill. As these items are rather rare and it is arduous to search for these items in the landfill, the waste pickers concentrate on collecting soft plastics that are abundant although lower priced (US$ 0.06/kg). Sasaki and Araki's (2014) analyses based on sales ledger records of a waste picker boss indicate that each of the waste pickers collect in excess of 100kg/day (Fig. 6) and earn ca. IDR2.4Mil (ca. US$ 200)/month (Fig. 7), which is just about the minimum wage in Jakarta area. Adding the factor that one can have total control over ones working practice and that there is no risk of being laid off from work, it is understandable that dumpsite waste picking is an attractive means to make a living despite the unpleasant labour conditions. In Malaysia recyclables are not extracted before reaching the landfill as intensive as in Indonesia. There are private recyclers and street pickers in Malaysia, but they mainly focus on waste paper and metals. Plastics including PET bottles are not attractive as they are bulky and cheap. Official source separation schemes have started, but it is not taken up fully yet. Municipal waste collectors used to make additional income from loading recyclables separately during routine collection and selling them to private dealers on the way to the landfill, but this practise is now strictly forbidden, as it is seen to be detrimental to collection efficiency.
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
Fig. 6 Amounts collected by waste pickers in Bantar Gebang (source: Sasaki and Araki 2014)
Fig. 7 Amounts earned by waste pickers in Bantar Gebang (source: Sasaki et al 2014)
Due to these reasons, a lot of items with relatively high value reach the landfill, and the waste pickers in Malaysia can earn almost three times more than in Indonesia, while collecting a similar amount (ca. 100kg/day) of different items (hard plastics are three times more worth per kilo compared to soft plastics). Hence waste picking in landfills in Malaysia is still economically attractive. The minimum wage in Malaysia is RM900/month (US$ 250), and the landfill waste pickers appear to be earning much more than that. The minimum wage in Malaysia is only marginally higher than that of Jakarta area, however the implication of minimum wage figures appears to be different (different degree of compliance) in the two countries. From the authors' living experience, cost of living in Malaysia is about three times that of Indonesia. This corresponds with the difference in GDP/capita, and the fact that the difference of earning by waste pickers is also about threefold.
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
Table 1. Comparison of income from dumpsite waste picking in Malaysia and Indonesia.
4. CONCLUSION As observed above, waste picking at landfill is still economically feasible in Malaysia whose GDP is three times as that of Indonesia. Moreover, Sasaki et al's analyses show that there exist waste pickers that earn more than double the average figure. This suggests that waste picking will remain feasible as means to earn a living even under a significant economic development. We are planning to conduct more in-depth studies on the income as well as living and working conditions of the waste pickers in Malaysia as Sasaki et al have done in Indonesia. It does not seem right to prohibit waste picking, in the presence of a large amount of valuable materials being delivered to the landfill, and many people desiring to make a living from collecting these materials. Ideally, recyclables should be separated from waste closer to source to enable a more efficient cycle of materials - i.e., obtaining higher quality recyclables with less dirty labour. Waste management authorities should make more active involvement in achieving this. Then only the non-recyclable items will be reaching the landfills, and we will not need to rely on the role of on-site waste pickers for recycling. More specifically, for example, waste management authorities can initiate separate collection schemes, formalise existing private recycling activities through registration etc., and make efforts on expanding the markets for secondary materials. The "waste hierarchy" or the 3Rs principle places waste reduction and reuse before recycling, this is well applicable to the behaviour of citizens for the objective of minimising the environmental impact from waste treatment and disposal. However for the waste administration, the waste hierarchy and 3Rs principle should not be used as an excuse for not making efforts for establishing a good institutional and physical infrastructure for recycling, not to mention proper waste disposal.
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are very grateful to the management of landfills that allowed us to make site visits to their facilities.
REFERENCES Futamatsu M., Nguyen T.T. and Leu T.B. (2011) "Methodology on the economic analysis of recyclables collection in Vietnam", Proceedings of the Annual Conference of Japan Society of Material Cycles and Waste Management 22:77-78 Sasaki S., and Araki T. (2013) "Employer-employee and buyer-seller relationships among waste pickers at final disposal site in informal recycling: The case of Bantar Gebang in Indonesia", Habitat International, 40:51-57 Sasaki S., and Araki T. (2014) "Estimating the possible range of recycling rates achieved by dump waste pickers: The case of Bantar Gebang in Indonesia" Waste Management &
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
Research, 32(6):474-481 Sasaki S., Araki T., Tambunan A.H. and Prasadja H. (2014) "Household income, living and working conditions of dumpsite waste pickers in Bantar Gebang: Toward integrated waste management in Indonesia", Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 89:11-21 Teik K. (2011) "Garbage Graves of Penang" Penang Monthly February 2011 Thevadass L. (2014) "From trash to cash" The Star 1 April 2014 Watanabe K., Tiew K.G., Irwan D., and Sasaki S. (2016) "At what stage of development will dumpsite scavenging be economically unfeasible? Comparison on the situation of scavenging in Malaysia and Indonesia" Proceedings of the Annual Conference of Japan Society of Material Cycles and Waste Management 27:115-116 Watanabe K., Okayama T., Khadijah S., Araki T., Lim C., Mateo-Babiano I., Tjiptoherijanto P., and Licos A. (2015) "API Collaborative Grant Project Report: Risks and Challenges of Urbanization: Focusing on Solid Waste Management Issues" https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/280094389
SUMMARY: The situation of on-site recycling at landfills in Malaysia was investigated. Although Malaysia's per capita GDP is three times that of Indonesia, waste picking at landfills is still economically feasible. The reason for this is that in Indonesia, the main recovered item is plastic bags as more valuable items are removed before the waste arrives to the landfill, while in Malaysia items such as PET bottles and metal cans are abundant in landfills, thus the waste pickers can earn a higher income. The authorities should make active efforts in supporting recycling at more upstream of the material flow so that recovering of materials at landfills will be unnecessary.
1. INTRODUCTION We can infer that as economy develops, recycling becomes less feasible under market economy. This is because labour wages increase with economic development, while the price of secondary materials is more or less universal, following the world market price. Eventually the labour cost for material recovery will exceed the revenue from recovered materials. It could probably be said that the relationship between economic development and the recycling rate follows an "inverse Kuznets curve" as shown in Fig 1. In the early stage of development, resource prices are relatively high compared to labour wages, and recycling happens "naturally" under the function of the market economy. As economy develops, labour costs will increase and make certain recycling operations unprofitable, thus recycling rate drops. With the further development of the economy, increased environmental awareness of the public leads to higher environmental standards and higher costs of disposal as well as subsidies for recycling. This will cause the recycling rate to rise again. Indonesia and Vietnam mentioned below can be hypothesised to be towards the right of the diagram, while Malaysia can be located around the centre, and Europe, North America and Japan at the left end. For example, Futamatsu et al (2011) conducted an economical analysis on the recycling of PET bottles by junk buyers in Hanoi, Vietnam, and concluded that when the wages increase by two-fold, the currently functioning system will come to a dead end. Sasaki et al (2014) investigated in details the situation of waste pickers in Bantar Gebang landfill in the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, and expressed doubts on the future of this activity; in the past the waste pickers earned much more than the minimum wage, but now the minimum wage has caught up with the level of income of the waste pickers. On the other hand, the presence of landfill waste pickers is still noted in Malaysia (Watanabe et al 2015, Teik 2011, Thevadass 2014), where the wages exceed by far the levels in Hanoi or Jakarta.
Proceedings Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium/ 2 - 6 October 2017 S. Margherita di Pula, Cagliari, Italy / © 2017 by CISA Publisher, Italy
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
In February and August 2016, we have conducted an investigation on the situation of on-site recycling activities at the landfills of Malaysia (GDP/cap $10,538), and compared it with that of Indonesia (GDP/cap $3,475) which has 1/3 the GDP per capita.
Fig. 1 The Recycling Inverse Kuznets Curve
2. CASE STUDIES We gathered information on which landfills still have on-site recycling activities, from Malaysian waste operators and local authority officers, and were able to make site visits to three of them. 2.1 Landfill A Landfill A is was constructed amidst a palm oil plantation in 1996 as an "interim landfill" by the local authority. The landfill is equipped with a leachate pond and wastewater treatment. Two neighbouring local authorities also send their waste to this landfill. 600t/day of municipal waste is delivered. The landfill is nearing its capacity, but the authorities plan to use this until 2019. Every day around 10-20 waste pickers operate in this landfill. There are two "leaders" who connect the waste pickers to the secondary material dealers. The site managers allow them to come into the site with their lorries twice a week and they carry out the recyclate they had bought from the waste pickers. The main items collected are hard plastics such as PET bottles and metal items such as aluminium cans. About 30t per month of items are carried out from the landfill and recycled. There is a depot located a few kilometres from the landfill where the items are temporarily stocked, and a larger vehicle comes regularly to transport them further. The access to landfill is free. There is no perimeter fence and one can access the landfill not only from the main gate. The managers prohibit children from scavenging activities, and that is well enforced. The managers maintain a good relationship with the waste pickers, and the waste pickers cooperate with the management, for example in detecting potentially hazardous waste brought into the landfill. Hard plastics are separated into PET and others, and each fetch
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
about 50sen/kg (US$ 0.15). According to the landfill managers, the daily earning of waste pickers is approximately RM100 (US$ 30). One of the waste pickers responded to our interview used to be a labourer at a palm oil plantation, but was laid off because of his high age, and decided to come to this landfill to earn his living.
Fig. 2 Waste picker at landfill A
Fig. 3 The main item collected is PET bottles
2.2 Landfill B This is an open dump established in 1997. It was planned to operate until 2010, but as of 2016 it was still accepting 250t/day of municipal waste and waste from light industries. There are about 10-15 waste pickers operating daily, and the total number is about 30. Our interviewee owns a motorbike and commutes from a nearby village. She collects about 100120kg of hard plastics and metals and sells them to a dealer located just outside the landfill site. The dealer has a roofed storage space, and is equipped with a bailing machine. Our interviewee earns about RM60-70/day (US$ 20). She has observed some children coming to pick in this landfill after school. 2.3 Landfill C Landfill C qualifies as Level 3 Sanitary Landfill. It was originally constructed in the 1980s and accepts 1700-1800t/day of municipal waste. It is owned by the local authority, and operated by a private company. The current company took over the operation in 2012. 200 waste pickers used to operate from the time before the current company took over, and their vested privilege is respected. Landfill C has a perimeter fence, and access is controlled at the main gate. They register the waste pickers, and only those who are registered are allowed to enter the landfill for picking. Currently there are about 100-120 registered pickers, and around 40-50 of them can be seen in daily operation. These pickers commute by motorcycles from villages nearby. The managing company charges the waste pickers for entry to the landfill, and also receives some concession from the secondary material dealers that come in to purchase the recyclables from the waste pickers. There is another on-site recycling activity going on at this landfill site. There is a recycling pilot plant where about 50t/day of waste is run through a belt conveyor, and employed workers extract recyclable materials by hand (Fig. 5). The initial plan was to hire the waste pickers at this plant, but none of the waste pickers came for the job. Apparently the wages were not in par
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
with the current earnings, and the waste pickers did not like the idea of being controlled with a fixed working hour. Hence the operators had to recruit immigrant labourers to run the plant. As the operator wanted to demonstrate the waste reduction effect of this plant, items that are not economically attractive are also collected, such as soft plastics and soiled cardboard. Therefore the current economic viability of this facility is not high. At this landfill, there is also a facility to wash and pelletise Polyethylene soft plastics (plastic shopping bags), this way they manage to sell the pellets derived from soft plastics to secondary plastics dealers (untreated plastic bags have such a low value they won't be treated as a commodity).
Fig. 4 Landfill C
Fig. 5 Sorting facility at landfill C
3. COMPARISON WITH BANTAR GEBANG LANDFILL, INDONESIA The cases in Malaysia are compared with that of Bantar Gebang landfill in Indonesia, where Sasaki et al (2014) conducted an intensive study on waste picker activities. An analysis was made as to why informal on-site recycling at landfill is still feasible in Malaysia where living costs and wages are significantly higher. In Indonesia, items with higher value such as PET bottles and metals are picked out of the waste stream at various stages before the waste ends up at the landfill. As these items are rather rare and it is arduous to search for these items in the landfill, the waste pickers concentrate on collecting soft plastics that are abundant although lower priced (US$ 0.06/kg). Sasaki and Araki's (2014) analyses based on sales ledger records of a waste picker boss indicate that each of the waste pickers collect in excess of 100kg/day (Fig. 6) and earn ca. IDR2.4Mil (ca. US$ 200)/month (Fig. 7), which is just about the minimum wage in Jakarta area. Adding the factor that one can have total control over ones working practice and that there is no risk of being laid off from work, it is understandable that dumpsite waste picking is an attractive means to make a living despite the unpleasant labour conditions. In Malaysia recyclables are not extracted before reaching the landfill as intensive as in Indonesia. There are private recyclers and street pickers in Malaysia, but they mainly focus on waste paper and metals. Plastics including PET bottles are not attractive as they are bulky and cheap. Official source separation schemes have started, but it is not taken up fully yet. Municipal waste collectors used to make additional income from loading recyclables separately during routine collection and selling them to private dealers on the way to the landfill, but this practise is now strictly forbidden, as it is seen to be detrimental to collection efficiency.
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
Fig. 6 Amounts collected by waste pickers in Bantar Gebang (source: Sasaki and Araki 2014)
Fig. 7 Amounts earned by waste pickers in Bantar Gebang (source: Sasaki et al 2014)
Due to these reasons, a lot of items with relatively high value reach the landfill, and the waste pickers in Malaysia can earn almost three times more than in Indonesia, while collecting a similar amount (ca. 100kg/day) of different items (hard plastics are three times more worth per kilo compared to soft plastics). Hence waste picking in landfills in Malaysia is still economically attractive. The minimum wage in Malaysia is RM900/month (US$ 250), and the landfill waste pickers appear to be earning much more than that. The minimum wage in Malaysia is only marginally higher than that of Jakarta area, however the implication of minimum wage figures appears to be different (different degree of compliance) in the two countries. From the authors' living experience, cost of living in Malaysia is about three times that of Indonesia. This corresponds with the difference in GDP/capita, and the fact that the difference of earning by waste pickers is also about threefold.
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
Table 1. Comparison of income from dumpsite waste picking in Malaysia and Indonesia.
4. CONCLUSION As observed above, waste picking at landfill is still economically feasible in Malaysia whose GDP is three times as that of Indonesia. Moreover, Sasaki et al's analyses show that there exist waste pickers that earn more than double the average figure. This suggests that waste picking will remain feasible as means to earn a living even under a significant economic development. We are planning to conduct more in-depth studies on the income as well as living and working conditions of the waste pickers in Malaysia as Sasaki et al have done in Indonesia. It does not seem right to prohibit waste picking, in the presence of a large amount of valuable materials being delivered to the landfill, and many people desiring to make a living from collecting these materials. Ideally, recyclables should be separated from waste closer to source to enable a more efficient cycle of materials - i.e., obtaining higher quality recyclables with less dirty labour. Waste management authorities should make more active involvement in achieving this. Then only the non-recyclable items will be reaching the landfills, and we will not need to rely on the role of on-site waste pickers for recycling. More specifically, for example, waste management authorities can initiate separate collection schemes, formalise existing private recycling activities through registration etc., and make efforts on expanding the markets for secondary materials. The "waste hierarchy" or the 3Rs principle places waste reduction and reuse before recycling, this is well applicable to the behaviour of citizens for the objective of minimising the environmental impact from waste treatment and disposal. However for the waste administration, the waste hierarchy and 3Rs principle should not be used as an excuse for not making efforts for establishing a good institutional and physical infrastructure for recycling, not to mention proper waste disposal.
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS We are very grateful to the management of landfills that allowed us to make site visits to their facilities.
REFERENCES Futamatsu M., Nguyen T.T. and Leu T.B. (2011) "Methodology on the economic analysis of recyclables collection in Vietnam", Proceedings of the Annual Conference of Japan Society of Material Cycles and Waste Management 22:77-78 Sasaki S., and Araki T. (2013) "Employer-employee and buyer-seller relationships among waste pickers at final disposal site in informal recycling: The case of Bantar Gebang in Indonesia", Habitat International, 40:51-57 Sasaki S., and Araki T. (2014) "Estimating the possible range of recycling rates achieved by dump waste pickers: The case of Bantar Gebang in Indonesia" Waste Management &
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
Research, 32(6):474-481 Sasaki S., Araki T., Tambunan A.H. and Prasadja H. (2014) "Household income, living and working conditions of dumpsite waste pickers in Bantar Gebang: Toward integrated waste management in Indonesia", Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 89:11-21 Teik K. (2011) "Garbage Graves of Penang" Penang Monthly February 2011 Thevadass L. (2014) "From trash to cash" The Star 1 April 2014 Watanabe K., Tiew K.G., Irwan D., and Sasaki S. (2016) "At what stage of development will dumpsite scavenging be economically unfeasible? Comparison on the situation of scavenging in Malaysia and Indonesia" Proceedings of the Annual Conference of Japan Society of Material Cycles and Waste Management 27:115-116 Watanabe K., Okayama T., Khadijah S., Araki T., Lim C., Mateo-Babiano I., Tjiptoherijanto P., and Licos A. (2015) "API Collaborative Grant Project Report: Risks and Challenges of Urbanization: Focusing on Solid Waste Management Issues" https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/280094389
