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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Michael Neilson in Jakarta Photography: Claudio Pramana

‘The trash does not stop’: life among the garbage mountains of the world’s biggest city

On the outskirts of Jakarta, huge rolling peaks of rubbish stretch across more than 100 hectares (247 acres), towering over nearby villages. Each day a convoy of trucks plough in and dump more garbage into one of Asia’s largest landfills.

Here, thousands of people live on the fringe of the site and make their income picking through the waste and salvaging scraps for resale. The work is dangerous – earlier this year seven people died after one of the massive trash mounds caved in, burying them alive.

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