Video of Indonesian landfill falsely shared as 'garbage mountain' in China

This article is more than one year old.
Published on April 11, 2023 at 12:11
3 min read
By Tommy WANG, AFP Hong Kong, AFP Indonesia

A video of a landfill site in Indonesia has been viewed thousands of times in posts that falsely claim it was filmed in China, a major producer of plastic. The Instagram user who originally filmed the video told AFP that he shot it at a landfill in Indonesia. Images tagged at the site on Google Maps also correspond with the video.

"Garbage mountain in China," reads the Chinese-language caption of a Gettr post published on March 17, 2023.

It contains a 17-second video of yellow diggers piling up rubbish at a landfill.

Screenshot of the false report, taken on March 31, 2023.

The clip circulated online after the United Nations agreed to start negotiating a world-first global treaty on plastic pollution in what has been hailed as a watershed moment for the planet, AFP reported.

The broad treaty framework approved by 193 UN nations -- among them major plastic producers like the United States and China -- does not spell out specific measures but leaves particulars to negotiations.

The video was viewed thousands of times on Twitter and Gettr alongside a similar claim.

Comments on the posts indicated some users were misled to believe the clip shows a landfill in China.

"China's trash summit", wrote one user.

"Biggest enemy to the modern human civilisation and mother Earth, in a number of ways, including this", commented another.

But the footage actually shows a landfill site in Indonesia, not China.

Indonesian landfill

A combination of keywords and reverse image search shows a longer and mirrored version of the video posted by an Indonesian photographer on Instagram on February 8, 2023.

The post indicates that the video's location is "Bantar Gebang, Bekasi", referring to a giant landfill in Bekasi, a city southeast of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

The footage in the false social media posts corresponds with the first 17 seconds of the Instagram video.

It was originally shared by Muhammad Ali Vikry, who told AFP that he filmed the clip on February 2 this year at the Bantar Gebang landfill.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the longer Instagram clip (right):

Screenshot comparison of the video used in the false post (left) and the video shared on Instagram on February 8 (right)

The Bantar Gebang landfill has operated since 1989 and can handle 6,500 to 7,000 tonnes of waste per day, according to the Jakarta Provincial Environment Agency's official website.

Indonesia has pledged to reduce plastic waste by 30 percent by 2025 -- a mammoth task in the Southeast Asian nation of nearly 270 million people where plastic recycling is rare.

The country generates approximately 7.8 million tonnes of plastic waste every year, with more than half mismanaged or disposed of improperly, according to the World Bank.

The landscape in the video also matches scenes seen in user photos tagged at the site on Google Maps, as shown below:

A screenshot of a Google Maps user's photo tagged at the same location.

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