Income valuation of rubbish collectors from the garbage dump sites in Kelantan, Malaysia

Landfill is a traditional method for solid waste disposal used throughout Malaysia including Kelantan. Despite negative connotation, landfill is actually a place for many poor people earning extra income to support their living. Hence, this study aims to investigate the income earned by rubbish collectors (scavengers) from the landfill sites in Kelantan.Interviews were carried with 50 respondents based on a structured questionnaire crafted to capture the demographic characteristics, monthly income, as well as types of waste materials and volume of each waste material collected. A descriptive statistical method was used to describe demographic profiles of respondents and types and volumes of waste materials collected by respondents. Out of 50 respondents, 47 of them were locals (Malaysians), two Burmese and one Indonesian.They were 33 males and 17 females. Majority of the respondents were from the age group of 20 to 29 where 8(16%) of them were still single while 42 (84%) were married. Among the married respondents, 8(16%) of them have no children, 12(24%) have one to two children, 13(26%) have three to four children and 17(34%) have more than four children. Majority of the respondents had from primary education. There provided a few reasons of why they were involved in rubbish collecting. 17 (34%) respondents said that it was a source of income, nine (18%) respondents answered as self- employment, 21 (42%) respondents said that it was for an extra income, while, three respondents said that they took over (continued) the work from their parents. There were 29 respondents (58%) who worked around three to four hours per day, 17 respondents (34%) worked around five to six hours per day, and four respondents (8%) worked more than six hours per day. The income was correlated (P<0.05) with the number of working hours in a day. In terms of income, ten respondents earned an income of less than RM 250 (20%), 23 respondents earned between RM 251 to RM 500 (46%), ten respondents earned between RM 501 to RM 750 (20%), four respondents earned between RM 751 to RM 1000 (8%), two respondents earned between RM 1001 to RM 1250 (4%) and one respondents earned from RM1251 to RM 1500 (2%). Therefore, the scavengers were able to earn an average of RM 465.5 per month.The study also showed that, most of the scavengers collected plastic and aluminum cans, 94% of them collect metal, 92% of them collect electronic parts, 68% collect glass waste and 10% of them collect paper. The amount of plastic, metal, glass, aluminium and paper wastecollectedexceeded10 kilogram per month, except for electronic parts which was less than 10 kilogram per month.In conclusion, the income earned by scavengers was considered as high and able to pull them out of the hard core poor groups. It is hoped that through this study, the local authority will recognise rubbish collectors (scavengers) as a job for the poor to earn their livelihood and develop proper mechanism to address the issue