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It’s not just companies that have learned how to make money from Jakarta’s garbage. A curious but determined Jakarta cult commonly known as “garbage scavengers” have been doing it for decades.

There are an estimated 400,000 trash pickers scouring the city’s garbage dumps and the trash bins and dumpsters of buildings, shopping malls and private residences collecting recyclable plastics, paper, glass and metals — and anything else that can be resold.

While the work is not encouraged by nongovernmental organizations or the Jakarta administration, it is one of the city’s few reliable recycling systems. But far from being respected, scavengers work in filthy, sometimes dangerous, conditions, are poorly paid, stigmatized and seen as a public eyesore.

Most trash pickers don’t have official Jakarta ID cards so are unable to find other types of employment. Their lives depend on collecting enough resalable garbage each day. There’s a scavenger society within the city’s two landfills, while solitary trash pickers are seen sifting through residential garbage bins or pulling makeshift wooden carts holding their booty.

A scavenger’s typical day begins so early that by the time most of Jakarta is awake its garbage bins have already been picked clean of valuable refuse.

Pak Udin, a trash picker in Cirendeu, South Jakarta, sets off at 4 a.m. each day with his cart. He and about 70 others from his neighborhood get daily briefings from the leader of their “trash pickers collective,” who is a waste trader, on what materials they should keep an eye out for.

One recent morning, Udin looked specifically for plastic Aqua mineral water bottles, but if he finds other valuable refuse, such as copper, he’ll grab it as well. Once his cart is full, he takes his booty back to his boss, who sells it to manufacturing companies.

Although the work is hard and he’s looked down upon, Udin says he earns better money than when he worked as a laborer on construction sites.

“There is always income as a trash picker — there is no shortage of trash in this city,” he says.

He has been working for his boss for more than 30 years and is happy with the arrangement. However, given that scavenging is an informal job, workers are vulnerable to exploitation, such as being underpaid for what they collect.

In her noted 1993 paper, “Working With Waste Pickers: Asian Approaches to Urban Solid Waste Management,” Christine Furedy, an associate professor at York University in Toronto, argued that governments should formalize the scavenger industry.

“Waste pickers usually have no concept of the pivotal role they play in resource recovery,” she said.

XSProject, a Jakarta-based international nonprofit organization, supports the city’s trash pickers by paying them above average for what they collect. The trash is then converted into handmade goods including stylish bags and sold globally through overseas buyers.

Retno Hapsari, from the organization, says its ultimate goal is to stop scavenging and get people into formal work. But she acknowledges that this won’t happen until poverty falls and informal-sector workers have better job prospects.

Ten percent of the money generated from XSProject products goes toward the schooling of the children of scavengers, in the hope they won’t become trash pickers.

“It is not realistic just to try and make them get other jobs, because they often do not have a choice,” Retno says. Matthew Theunissen