Ahmad Yani spent hours each day sifting through piles of rubbish, searching for recyclable materials to sell to help make ends meet.
For decades, his family and other people in his village in East Java in Indonesia would buy truckloads of waste residue from factories recycling imported paper and cardboard.
They would spread the waste on the ground, and separate plastics from paper and cardboard.
The paper would be sold back to the recycling factories and most of the plastics to industries that needed fuel for furnaces.
"It had become a source of livelihood for many low-income residents," Mr Yani said, adding he would make about 300,000 rupiah ($24) a month.
Any plastics still left over would be used in his village to fire limestone kilns, to produce building materials to sell or use.
Mr Yani said among the rubbish he noticed food sachets and cat and dog food packaging with Australian labels as well as labels of countries in Europe.
While burning plastic has helped support the family's livelihood, the smoke from their home and neighbouring households may be having devastating health impacts.
He said some people he knew who had operated the limestone kilns had died from respiratory diseases and causes were never determined.
Mr Yani said the burning of plastics in his village was no longer happening. It stopped about a year ago.
Several local media reported companies had stopped distributing waste to his community to sort, which had sparked anger among locals who lost their source of income.
The ABC couldn't independently verify the reasons for the change.
But health concerns for people who have been exposed to air pollution from burning plastics remain.
'Unaware of the dangers'
Researchers from the Climate and Health Centre at Brawijaya University were investigating the health impacts of air pollution in East Java when they found locals were burning plastic waste.
One of the researchers, Sekar Aqila Salsabilla, said pre-screening tests earlier this year on those in their study produced some worrying findings.
She said at least 20 per cent of the more than 4,000 participants across six East Java villages were at high risk of cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
"When we first entered these communities, one of the most distressing findings was that many people were unaware of the dangers associated with burning plastic waste," said Ms Salsabilla, who worked with more than 30 researchers as part of a broader study, the majority of whom had medical backgrounds.
People earning money from sorting waste, known as "plastic farmers", knew their health was "slowly declining" but did not understand the source of the problems, she said.
"Despite the income they generate, many do not realise that the long-term health burden they may face is likely to be far greater than the money they earn from handling and burning this waste," Ms Salsabilla said.
Most plastic waste was no longer burned in people's homes but rather converted into refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and burned in a designated facility, she said.
"But I think this only relocates the problem rather than actually solving it," Ms Salsabilla said, adding the facility still required humans to sort the waste.
Emissions from open waste burning, such as burning plastics, include a variety of air pollutants, some of which have particularly harmful effects on both the climate and health, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
"Exposure to these pollutants, whether short or long-term, can lead to adverse health effects such as coughing, skin irritation, respiratory diseases, and other negative outcomes," the WHO says on its website.
Ms Salsabilla said the waste imported to East Java was coming from places including Australia, the US and Europe.
Agus Rusly, the waste reduction director at Indonesia's Ministry of Environment, told the ABC the lack of accessible waste management services, irregular waste collection, and limited recycling facilities had contributed to open waste burning in Indonesia.
Mr Rusly said the Environment Ministry was working to improve waste governance, in collaboration with regional governments, through a national framework "aimed at achieving comprehensive waste management by 2029".
Enforcement is 'weak'
In 2019, Indonesian environmentalists called on Australia to tighten its regulation and enforcement of waste exports to foreign countries, saying Australian exporters were effectively "smuggling" huge amounts of plastic and waste paper supposedly sent for recycling.
Daru Setyorini, executive director of local environmental activist group Ecoton, said plastics with Australian labels could still be found in East Java and people in villages were still "secretly" burning plastics.
"To this day, it [the plastic waste] still exists, although it has decreased significantly compared to 2024 and the years before that," she said.
"The monitoring and enforcement are still weak. Ideally, these imports from Australia should just be stopped altogether."
Australia exported 701,000 tonnes of paper and cardboard to Indonesia in the recent financial year, according to Joe Pickin at Blue Environment who analysed data from Australia's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW).
While Australia can legally export recyclable plastic waste to Indonesia, concerns have centred on plastic contaminants in paper and cardboard exports.
Indonesia applies a 2 per cent contamination limit on paper waste imports, meaning contaminants such as plastic, food residue, soil and other non-paper materials must not exceed that threshold.
A spokesperson for Australia's Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) said it took "allegations of unlawful waste exports seriously".
"The National EPA assesses allegations of non-compliance with Commonwealth environmental laws and takes a proportionate, risk-based approach to determining appropriate regulatory responses," they said.
Many Australian material recovery facilities have invested significantly in upgrading their operations to meet these standards and ensure that materials exported for recycling met appropriate quality requirements, according to the Australian Council of Recycling.
"Failure to enforce these rules not only risks environmental harm but also disadvantages operators doing the right thing, undermining their investments," CEO Suzanne Toumbourou said.
Ms Setyorini said each country should be responsible for its own plastic waste.
"Indonesia has got enough waste problems, so developed countries like Australia shouldn't export their waste here," she said.
The DCCEEW has been contacted for comment.
