Sakaman smoke crossed the blue sky. The street was covered with garbage pieces. The garbage on the feet came from houses lined up on both sides with small alleys in between. On April 25, in the village of Jawatimur, Indonesia, there were garbage to the height of human waist at home. The garbage overflowing from the yard rolled up to the village.
In front of the house, I found a soup bag of ‘Shilla Rice Fried Noodles’. Shin Ramyun Fried Noodle Taste is a product that Nongshim sells only in Japan. In addition, the garbage of various countries such as peanut packaging from Australia, organic cranberry bags of Canadian local marts, European dog snacks, Dutch laundry detergent shells, and Taiwan cats are found around the village. The garbage that occupied the village was not abandoned by the villagers. The village where garbage came around the world was found with Ecoton.
Shin Ramyun Fried Noodles‘ Soup’ soup. Shin Ramyun Fried Noodle Taste is a product that Nongshim sells only in Japan. Reporter Oh Kyung -min” loading=”lazy”/>In the plastic garbage covering the village, we found ‘Shin Ramyun Fried Noodles’ Soup’ soup. Shin Ramyun Fried Noodle Taste is a product that Nongshim sells only in Japan. Reporter Oh Kyung -min
The garbage accumulated in each yard, I came from Korea

A woman is walking in front of the house on April 25 (local time) in the village of Jawatimur Malang, Indonesia. Each house has a garbage in the yard, and black smoke is coming out in the middle of the village. Reporter Oh Kyung -min
This is the story of multinational garbage flowing into a small village. Next to the village is a large factory run by a pulp and paper company called Ekamas Fortuna. Ecamas Portuna recycles the abolition imported from all over the world to make paper. Imported abolition is mixed with various foreign substances, including plastic. The factory struck out large paper through the internal process, and the remaining garbage is crushed and sold to the residents. The machine is no longer extracting paper. Residents take off the paper from the wet garbage and dry them in the paper factory.
Some of the trash pieces that have been carried to the village are not crushed. You can check the origin of garbage, which is not crushed so it is a trash that remains. Every week, garbage from another country comes in and burned again. Korean garbage is no exception. A villager who bought garbage for 30 years said, “I saw the world’s garbage.” Ecoton’s representative, Setiorini, said six months ago that he discovered Korean garbage in a village near Pabrik Kertas Paper Plant in another city of Mozojerto. Residents meet trash with strange languages every day.

It is stacked with a mix of plastic and paper garbage at the corner of the village. The villagers pick a piece of paper from the pile of garbage and sell them at a nearby paper plant. The piece of paper chosen by the residents is in front of the trash pile. Reporter Oh Kyung -min
Every week, I buy a truck every house. The garbage moved by a truck is about 4-5 tons. It is natural that dozens of households receive dozens of truck waste, so the entire village becomes garbage. Yani, the founder of AKSI, who promotes the circulation of local resources, explained that a truck of trash is traded at about 150,000 rupiah (about 13,000 won). If you pick only paper and sell it to the factory, you can get about 900,000 rupiah (76,000 won). In return for living with garbage and losing garbage with bare hands, the monthly money is about 3.5 million rupiah (295,000 won). Considering local circumstances, it is not a small amount. Last year, the average minimum wage in Indonesia was 3.1 million rupiah (261,000 won) per month. The minimum wage of Jawatimur, which belongs to the village, is less than 2.17 million rupiah (182,000 won). Yani said, “This neighborhood was originally a village in farming, but when garbage classification became more money than farming, people began to classify garbage.” In 1993, a few years after the paper plant entered, residents quit cabbage farming.
It is illegal for the paper plant to take imported waste to villagers, not waste disposal facilities. All of this process is informally and openly operated by the community. The garbage procession that came into the village for more than 30 years did not stop.

In front of a house in the village, wet paper garbage is dried on the turret. Provided by Yoo Hye -min
The ratio of garbage sent to the village is estimated to be around 30%. The rest is almost plastic. The proportion of plastic is higher than that of the factory after filtering out paper at the factory. Residents trace the plastic and scrape or pick up corrugated cardboards with plastics without gloves.
Garbage in developed countries head to developing countries with insufficient regulations and cheap processing costs. In developed countries, developed countries import garbage, which was difficult to kill in developed countries, to use it as a raw material or fuel. Indonesia is also one of the representative waste importers. It would be nice if garbage was recycled ‘properly’ here, but the garbage processing system in developing countries is worse than developed countries.
It is prohibited from exporting waste plastics, how did it come?
The Basel Convention, revised in January 2021, restricted the movement between countries, including contaminated plastic waste in ‘waste that requires special consideration’. Since then, only a single clean plastic is reported to be exported, and contaminated waste plastics must be approved by the importer in advance. 187 countries, including Korea, signed an amendment to the agreement.
In terms of international statistics, the import and export of waste plastics, which corresponds to the customs code ‘HS 3519’ before and after the revision of the Basel Convention, dropped sharply. On May 6, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced that in 2023, the movement between waste plastics was reduced by half compared to 2014. However, as confirmed in the village of Sidging An, a huge amount of waste plastics flows into the developing country.
But there are many ways to cross the border. You can turn it into other garbage such as paper, rubber, clothes, and electronics. The waste plastics, which are separated by the tariff code ‘HS 3519’, are all for garbage made of plastic. According to the IPEN’s plastic trash trade: covered numbers, a huge amount of plastic is exported to developing countries, mixed with paper garbage (tariff cord HS 4707), clothes waste (HS 6309), and electronic waste (HS 8549). The report estimates that it contains 5-30%for paper garbage, 60-70%for clothes and 20%for electronics. The report said, “The international movement of waste plastics and plastic harmful substances has increased.
Ecotone analyzed the UN trade statistics, and Indonesia bought the abolition of 2.245,869 million tons around the world by 2024. In terms of weight, a large amount of abolition was sent to Indonesia in the order of Australia, the United States, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan and New Zealand. Korea exported 8,5463 tons and ranked ninth.

A villager for the village is brushing off the cardboard from the trash. Provided by Yoo Hye -min
Most of the plastic… Touch every day and burn every day
It is not yet known how the impact on the health of the workers’ health is on the health of the disposal stage. In addition to the musculoskeletal disorders caused by the high -intensity physical labor of garbage labor, the Institute for Health and Health is estimated to have been exposed to chemical and biological risks caused by waste collection and selective workers. Many overseas studies have recorded that plastic collected workers complained of colds, bronchitis, diarrhea, hypertension, diabetes, gastrointestinal disease, dermatology, kidney and liver disease. Some studies have been announced that plastic collector workers are more likely to develop general health diseases than control groups.
In plastic manufacturing, 1,6325 chemicals are used and classified as harmful substances. There are only 1380 ingredients known to be harmless, and the remaining 17,726 harmful information has not yet been identified. It is difficult to expect that plastics that emit pollutants such as chemical additives from the use stage will be safe in the disposal stage.
More clearly revealed is the acting that occurs when burning. Incinerating plastic spreads dioxin, mercury, and polyvenyl bipenyl (PCBS) in the atmosphere. It is a harmful substance that causes respiratory diseases, cancer, deterioration of reproductive ability, and immunity.
The people of the village of the villagers filter out the paper and carry the remaining plastic pieces in the corner of the house or the village. The kiln without a reduction device, of course, does not rest in the middle of the village and emits a huge gray smoke. Residents are not wary of acting. The children threw kites right next to the smoke or ride a bicycle. When I passed the acting, I didn’t frown or block my nose. No one was wearing a mask.
Local environmental activists are demanding the government to raise the standards of pollution applied to imported waste. Ultimately, it is argued that the garbage of developed countries should not be imported. “The Indonesian government has limited the pollution pollution imports imported in 2020 to a maximum of 2%, and this year it will stop importing plastic waste, but it is not properly maintained.”

In the middle of the village, smoke with garbage is flowing. Reporter Oh Kyung -min

In front of a house in the village, plastic and paper are mixed with garbage. Provided by Yoo Hye -min

The village of Sidhill looks blurry in the smoke. The kite floats over the village sky. Provided by Yoo Hye -min