... more East

Beijing, April 2012.

Trash removal

Puerto Galera, Mindoro, June 2010.

Collecting rubbish in a filthy river

Jakarta, January 2010.

A harbor in Java

Garbage harbor or normality?

Harbor on Java's North coast, June 2009.

Naples is everywhere

Trash next to our house. No close-up of the rats this time...

Jakarta, October 2009.

Trash collector

Jakarta, July 2009.

Garbage city

Jakarta is garbage city as garbage is everywhere. If you leave your house and wherever you go you will see open dumps. During the day these smelly places are full of cats and cockroaches, while at night dozens of fat rats storm them.

During the day all sorts of scavengers pass by to sort out the waste. Some are picking iron or copper others glass or paper. A home dump as seen above will be turned up to ten times a day depending on the specialization of the ‘recyclists’.

After having collected and sorted out the lot, the scavenger brings his prey to specialized collecting sites where a few Rupiahs will be paid for a hard day's work.

Tin business

Collect, 'right-size' and sell the tins for recycling.

Agats, Papua, April 2009.

Bintang can in the universe

Happy New Year!

Photo of an empty bintang can, Lembeh Strait, North-Sulawesi, December 2008.

Giant Lilies

Above the common version of victoria amazonica or giant water lily and below the version also to be found in Bogor's botanical garden.

Photo from Bogor, West-Java, September 2008.

rest or work?

Photo from Jakarta, September 2008.

After the picnic

Sunday is the traditional day when Indonesians go out with their families to enjoy picnic at scenic places.

Photo taken shortly after a family left, Bogor last Sunday, August 2008.

Garbage collection

Photo from Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta, April 2008.

Resting on bounty

A Chinese-Indonesian resting on piles of collected cardboard.

Photo from Glodok, Jakarta, May 2008.

Fight for survival

Collecting valuables from one of Jakarta's dirty canals. What is valuable is already placed on the left.

Photo from Glodok, Jakarta, May 2008.

What a pleasure: Clifton Beach, Karachi

Clifton beach is Karachi's major beach. Once you make it through the garbage it invites you to a swim...

Picture from Karachi, Pakistan, March 2008.

Life is about choice, isn't it?

Anything else you need? At Guam airport you can choose junk food from all over the world. 'Mexican' from Big Nama, 'German' from Wienerschnitzel (sic!), u.s.a.'isch from Burger King, 'Japanese' from that place with the beautiful characters and 'Italian' from the whatever Pizza place.

You need a healthy stomach if you want to survive Guam airport.

Photo from November 2007.

Smokey Mountain: Manila's Divine Comedy

Manila’s dumpsites are not just sites where waste is being dumped. All dumpsites offer means for survival for many people. Payatas in the north of Manila provides ‘survival’ for some 100,000 people. Smoky Mountain (bordering Manila’s port) is smaller but the same inhumanity exists there. Whole families live on the dumpsite all their lives. Father Giovanni Gentilin, a remarkable Italian priest who has been working in Tondo for 18 years, tells us that life expectancy is around 40 years for people living on the dumpsite.

The dumpsite in itself offers a glimpse of Dante Alighieri’s hell. As in Dante’s work, different layers of hell exist but they are all horrifying. Some people have small Sari-Sari stores on Smokey Mountain, others run a videoke machine or a ‘bar’ with a billiard table but most people who live in shacks on the dumpsite earn their living by collecting and selecting rubbish. All live in dirt, sharing the scarce space with millions of flies and armadas of rats and breathing a pestilent, highly toxic air. Father Giovanni calls it the ‘the smell of the politicians’ who are all good Catholics or Christians.

Every day is a fight for survival. Once the waste is being brought in or shifted, hundreds of scavengers fight for getting the best parts of it. Thanks to Father Giovanni’s work, many scavengers now have rubber boots to avoid stepping into sharp metal; he and his supporters run a number of projects to alleviate the burden of such life by offering basic health care and scholarships for the kids.

All photos from Smokey Mountain, Tondo, Metro Manila, October 2007.

If you want to help please visit 'Smokey Children', if you have better and other solutions please let us know and comment.

After an 'all you can eat' event

Photo from La Loma, Metro Manila in March 2007.

Trash in Manila

Plastics collector on the Pasig river, Manila in April 2007.

Does somebody know how much he earns
for collecting 1 kilogram of plastics?