Scavengers...!!!

The presence of scavengers is a known phenomenon that can be found particularly in developing countries. Scavengers utilize waste as a resource which is considered livelihoods on their behalf.  In addition to the scavengers own income, the waste producers are also helped in dumping waste in the process.

                Garbage scavenging has also brought some positive opinions in government's point of view. Scavengers also have a role as a sorter of plastic waste. They have the skill to sort and separate between organic and non-organic waste. The role of scavengers in the waste management business and municipal waste is inevitable. Scavengers help solving the environmental problem due to the development process through waste collecting and processing. (http://www.smh.com.au/multimedia/world/jakartas-rubbish-scavengers-20091204-k9ng.html).

         Scavengers have to deal with the social construction of societies that marginalize them. Nowadays, we can see that it is quite often that we could find an announcement billboard or poster in a certain housing area which prohibits the entry for scavengers to their area, the reason is that local communities have already given negative impressions to them due to the action itself by scavengers who never asked for permission to conduct their activities, violating the ban, taking items that are still used, and related negative activities. In addition, government consider the existence of scavengers as an illegal group that has no legal provisions and they are also considered as a regional dignity destroyer.

Indonesia needs to improve human quality for Indonesia's survival which faces a high population growth in a land with unlimited resources. Internal and external aspects of human needs to be examined in order to improve the quality of human resources. The presence of scavenger is a phenomenon that can be found particularly in developing countries. Scavengers are also defined as a person or group of people who work in the informal sector with a status of "urban poor". There is no official record showing the specific number of scavengers, firstly, because the government considers that they do not exist, therfore it is not needed to make a record. Secondly, the difficulty is also caused by the complexity of the categories used to refer that someone is a scavenger or not. Among the scavengers, there are distinctions to the scavengers who lived on the street, scavengers who lived in a rented house, and scavengers who buy used goods. Third, the difficulty to determine the number of scavengers are also caused by mobility and their existence (Ghofur, 2009).

The issues of scavengers's behaviour is complex and very useful to get an overview of the psychological dynamics of the scavengers, regarding their position that is still considered to be a marginal group of people. As a minority, scavengers have to deal with the pressures of so many aspects in life, from economic, social and also cultural pressures. They struggle to overcome illness without proper treatment, odors, low standard of living without definite results from garbage scavenging with a big risk faced by scavengers related to a health issue. In addition, they are also struggling to overcome fear because of the internal exploitation among scavengers itself, their dignity is underappreciated because they are not considered as the citizens of the city and also outcasted from society.  

Based on the division of governmental administration, scavengers can not be included as a member of RT/RW (Indonesian neighborhood community) because they are homeless and do not have valid documents related to their presence. In the government perspective they are usually considered as uneducated people who do not have important documents including identification card and sometimes associated with criminal issue and environmental neatness.

Regardless of the positive role of scavengers in the environment conservation, there are also problems associated with the presence of scavengers in the community. Scavengers as a part of the society have brought some positive and negative opinions form another society. Positive opinion is given by the society where they are aware of the role of scavengers in helping preserving the environment. However, there are also people in the society who are disturbed with the scavengers presence due to the action itself by scavengers who never asked for permission to conduct their activities, violating the ban, taking items that are still used, and related negative activities. Scavengers are often considered scum and sometimes criminals, not to mention filthy, making part of the community alarmed by their presence. The negative perceptions from the society about scavengers can be seen in some villages and communities where they put on a billboard or a poster which stated “no entry” for scavengers.

Garbage scavenging activity is a form of society participations in solving waste problems that disturb the environmental balance (Priyono, 1996). Undang-Undang No 32 Tahun 2009 about environment stated that "For the environmental protection and the management system, every business is required to have an environmental permit, from the small home industry to a big scale industry. If the venture does not have a permit, it could be closed and even criminal penalties will be given according to the violation of the permit." Garbage scavenging is an informal recycling activity that work along with the current formal system in the waste management system.

The greenhouse effect is actually a natural process where the atmosphere reflects back the heat radiation from the surface of the earth so that the earth becames warm. The function of reflecting heat radiation is performed by the greenhouse gases like CO2 and CH4. Currently, the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere is already beyond its normal state so that the radiation heat emitted into the Earth's surface becomes more numerous and as the result are the extreme climate change and the increase of temperature of the earth.

Waste sector contributed 18.1% of total methane gas, the third largest sector after agriculture (40%) and the process and distribution of fossil material (29.6%) (Wikipedia). Methane emission is produced by the landfill waste in the TPA (final disposal landfill) as a result from microorganism hydrolysis and fermentation process in anaerobic conditions.

Table 1. Potential CO₂ dan CH₄ in Special Province of Yogyakarta,  Indonesia 2004-2008

	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Amount of garbage in TPA (ton)	515.537	520.568	525.487	530.582	535.708
Emission prediction of  CO2(1000 ton)	15,70	15,85	16,00	16,16	16,31
Emission prediction of CH4 (1000 ton)	23,37	23,60	23,82	24,05	24,29

Source : Indonesia's Waste Statistic in 2008,  processed based on CO2 and CH4 emission factors that determined by the IPCC

In a waste management system, scavengers have the role in separating wastes. They collect plastic, paper, and metal waste everyday. In a day, a scavenger could collect approximately 15-20kg plastic waste and 5-10kg paper waste per day (Rahayu,2008). In addition with approximately 300 scavengers, in a day there are 4-6ton plastic waste that could be sorted. Methane gas emission from the landfill in various countries is predicted to continue rising in the future along with the increase of waste disposed volume due to the population explosion.

Scavengers work in collecting wastes which have economic value and sell those goods to the waste collector and eventually depositing those wastes as raw materials to factories and small home industries. The scavengers-industry chain sometimes becomes too long caused by the waste collector who often resells raw materials to the bigger scale waste collector and so forth. Therefore scavenging activity creates a lot of jobs during the journey of garbage scavenging which finally ended up as raw materials in the factory. 

So, let's keep our environment and keep our earth.. Regards peace, love and respect <3<3<3