The smoke from burning waste gets so thick at Delfina Martin’s home in Timor-Leste, she and her children struggle to breathe.
But she says it’s not the only way the country’s biggest rubbish dump — only 300 metres from her house — damages her family’s health.
“During the rainy season the children have stomach aches, fever, gastroenteritis,” she says.
Delfina Martin says the Tibar rubbish dump is causing health issues for her family. (ABC News: Vonia Vieira)
“My mother also suffered from tuberculosis and was treated at the clinic, but in 2014 she died.”
Rubbish from the capital Dili, home to about 300,000 people, is transported and dumped in the 23-hectare landfill, about 12 kilometres west of the city.
Unable to find another home, Ms Martin has lived near the rubbish dump in Tibar, a long-established residential area, for more than 30 years.
People make a living picking waste at the Tibar rubbish dump. (ABC News: Vonia Vieira)
Flies come into her house from the rubbish dump, spoiling the family’s food, she says.
Ms Martin is one of many residents who fear the rubbish dump is wrecking their health.
Her neighbour, Miranda Dos Santos, says the smoke from burning waste has weighed heavily on her.
“I have regular coughs, fevers and stomach pain, and then I contracted [tuberculosis],” she says.
“I underwent treatment at the clinic and took medication for six months.”
Miranda Dos Santos says the rubbish dump is the reason she has tuberculosis. (ABC News: Vonia Vieira)
Timor-Leste’s government responded to residents’ concerns by vowing in 2012 to relocate the rubbish dump.
But Ms Martin says despite the promise, nothing has happened.
“Hospital garbage is also thrown here, people do not bury anything,” she says.
‘They think we’re animals’
Waste disposal has been one of Timor-Leste’s most visible problems.
With scant waste management infrastructure and services, it has mainly disposed of rubbish by dumping and burning at disposal sites, a 2023 analysis from the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) found.
SPREP’s study also found no landfills or dump sites in Timor-Leste were up to “modern” standards of waste disposal that minimised their impacts on the environment.
Tibar rubbish dump is the only controlled landfill in Timor-Leste. (ABC News: Vonia Vieira)
Researchers found many households and businesses were illegally dumping and burning their waste.
Tibar’s rubbish dump, which began operating in 1982, is the only controlled landfill in Timor-Leste. This means it is managed with some level of government oversight.
Still, the smell of waste there can be overwhelming, Ms Dos Santos says.
“Sometimes garbage from the trucks falls on the road, but [garbage collectors] are not interested in picking it up,” she says.
“They think we are not human. They think we are pigs or animals living here.”
More than 1,800 people have been treated for acute respiratory infections at the Tibar medical centre over the past year — at least 10 times the national rate.
Timor-Leste’s National Director of Health covering the Tibar area, Manuel Albino, says the health impacts of the dump are a “national” problem.
“In terms of public health, the communities in Tibar are at severe risk from the garbage that comes from the capital,” he says.
Mr Albino says along with acute respiratory infections like pneumonia, it has caused other common illnesses in the area including diarrhoea.
Nuno Vital Soares, Director of Timor-Leste’s Laboratory National Hospital, says the high rates of illness in Tibar are undoubtedly because of substandard water and pollution from the dump.
“The water consumed can have a negative impact on pregnant women. It can be seen from the respiratory tract,” he says.
“If the water is contaminated with some chemicals or microbes, there is no treatment for it properly, even if its percentage is small.”
Environmental experts call for urgent change
The Timor-Leste government says it is aware of the problems, and is trying to address them with new technology and waste disposal practices aiming to reduce contamination.
“Since 2022 until today, we have stopped burning garbage, started reducing the amount of waste,” Domingos Godinho, Director of Water, Sanitation and Environment Services at Dili Municipality, says.
He says it uses a new system that prevents rubbish impacting the surrounding environment, including spreading a geomembrane — a large waterproof tarp — along the ground to stop rubbish from contaminating water and soaking into the soil.
But Mr Godinho says the government has abandoned the plan to relocate the rubbish dump because it is too expensive.
“The government saw the high cost and decided to still maintain the Tibar landfill. So now we deploy this big, new project.”
But Tibar residents say last month, rubbish started burning once again at the rubbish dump.
Mr Godinho says “unknown people” had burnt waste at the site, but the government has reactivated security at the site to stop it.
“The government guarantees that people will not burn garbage any more,” he says.
Environmental experts say something needs to change, to protect residents’ health.
Local environmental researcher Augustu Almeida da Silva says there is a need for a solution involving both the government and the community.
Augustu Almeida da Silva says the problems caused by the dump must be addressed quickly. (ABC News: Vonia Vieira)
And he says it is urgent.
“If it is not resolved, the consequences can reach a point where the whole of Timor will be like a garbage dump,” he says.
For now, the rubbish trucks continue to hurtle past Ms Martin’s home.
She says she just wants to see action that would protect her family.
