A look inside the punishing world of India’s garbage collectors

The putrid smell of burning garbage wafts for miles from the landfill on the outskirts of the Indian city of Jammu – a potentially toxic miasma fueled by the waste generated by some 740,000 people.

However, some citizens have no choice but to ignore the smoke and sweltering heat to sort through the garbage. They are forced to try to find something of value to sell in order to earn, at best, the equivalent of €3.70 per day.

“If we don’t do this, we don’t have any food to eat,” explains 65-year-old Usmaan Shekh. “We try to take a break for a few minutes when it gets too hot, but mostly we just keep going until we can’t.”

Shekh and his family are among the 1.5 to four million people who eke out a living searching through India’s waste — and climate change is making a dangerous job more dangerous than ever.

In Jammu in the foothills of the Himalayas, temperatures this summer have often reached 43 degrees Celsius.

At least one person has died in the north The latest heat wave in India was identified as a garbage collector.

How dangerous are India’s landfills for those forced to work nearby?

In landfills, rising summer heat increases emissions of gases such as methane and carbon dioxide, which can be dangerous to breathe at landfill levels due to depleted oxygen.

To make matters worse, almost all landfill fires occur in the summer—and they can burn for days.

INDIA generates at least 62 billion kilograms of waste a year, and some of its landfills – such as the Ghaziabad area outside New Delhi – are mountains of garbage.

While a 2016 law made it mandatory to separate waste so that hazardous material does not end up in landfills, the law has been poorly enforced – adding to the risks for waste pickers.

Littering is already dangerous: climate change makes it worse

“Since they mostly use their hands, they are already contaminated by touching everything from diapers to diabetes syringes,” says Bharati Chaturvedi, founder of the New Delhi-based Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group.

Chaturvedi, who has worked with waste pickers for more than two decades, says the extreme heat has added new dangers to the waste pickers, who are already victims of social discrimination and terrible working conditions.

“It’s been a terrible, terrible, terrible year,” she says, “they’re already expecting to suffer from the heat and it’s giving them a lot of anxiety because they don’t know if they’re going to make it, if they’re going to get out.survive it [the summer].

‘The most disastrous thing’ – why this year’s heat has been a disaster for rubbish collectors

Chaturvedi adds that this year’s heat has been “the most catastrophic thing imaginable”.

“It’s really very sad to see how the poor are trying to somehow live, just take their bodies and try to get to the end of this heat wave in some form of being intact.”

Heating planning and public health experts say people who are forced to work outside are at greater risk from prolonged heat exposure.

Heat stroke, cardiovascular and chronic kidney diseases are some of the risks of working in such conditions.

Garbage pickers “are among the most vulnerable and most exposed to heat,” says Abhiyant Tiwari, who leads the climate resilience team at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s India program.

The heat seems to be making life difficult for many people.

Why some Indian waste pickers are avoiding eating to survive

In New Delhi, some people working with the capital’s 4.2 billion kilograms of annual waste have cut back from two meals a day to just one.

“They are trying to avoid work because of the heat, because if they go to work they end up spending more on the hospital than on their food,” says Ruksana Begum, a 41-year-old waste picker at the city’s Bhalswa landfill.

Tiwari and Chaturvedi both stress the importance of giving waste collectors access to a regular water supplyshade or a relatively cool building near the depots.

They should also be encouraged to avoid working in high heat and be given immediate medical attention when they need it, experts say.

However, it is not always so straightforward.

Translating warming policy into practical action is a problem

While Tiwari says that India has taken significant steps to devise action plans for heatingthe reality of their implementation across the country is a significant challenge.

“As a society, we have a responsibility to protect them [garbage pickers],” says Tiwari, suggesting that people can offer them water if they stay outside people’s houses, rather than asking them to leave.

Geeta Devi, a 55-year-old garbage collector also at the Bhalswa landfill in New Delhi, says that when she feels dizzy from the heat, she takes shelter and sometimes someone gives her water or food.

But regardless of how she feels, she has to work to earn 150-200 rupees (about 1.65 to 2.25 euros) a day to put food on the table for her children.

“It’s hard to do my job because of the heat – but I don’t have another job,” she says.