Jakarta faces huge waste crisis as garbage mountains rise

Bekasi, Indonesia

SIFTING through a mountain of garbage with her bare hands, a thick cloth wrapped around her face to keep out the stench, Patimah recalled her early days scavenging at a dump on the outskirts of the Indonesian capital the size of 120 football fields.

"I vomited back then," she told AFP while wading through knee-deep waste, swatting away flies as she hunted for plastic bottles amid food scraps and soiled clothing.