Not far from our busy city lives, a landfill is a city in itself. Bustling with people busy in their work and animals toppling stuff in their search for food. The only difference being that a landfill’s inhabitants live, breathe and eat garbage – solid waste that we (city dwellers) from the other side of the world create every day. How much? Anything from 2000 tons a day in cities like Ahmedabad, Kanpur, Pune to over 10,000 tons in metros such as Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Here in pictures, we take you on a trip to a landfill and meeting with its people while you are there.
I took a trip to Bhalswa landfill in Delhi during the summer when I first got interested in waste issues. Before reaching, I saw a huge hill of garbage with scores of eagles hovering above some 5 kms away.
I hid my camera in the bag and hitched a ride in a garbage dumper truck and entered the landfill site and ended at the top of the ‘hill’. Tough to stay there for long with the amount of stink in the air.
At a given point of time, there were 2 trucks at the top of the hill. They would park a the edge of the hill and start unloading the waste and leave to collect more waste from the city.
There were about 200-300 waste ragpickers who would run towards the truck every time it upturned to release its waste.
Majority of the ragpickers and workers on the landfill were women and young kids.
A woman carries her collections in polythene and rag at Bhalswa landfill, Delhi
Plastic bottles are a big catch for the ragpickers. One of them told me that he sells bottles to a recycler in the slums adjoining the landfill for Rs 3-5 per gunny bag. He sells around 20-30 such gunny bags per day, working 10-12 hours per day.
The men resting have magnets (pretty heavy ones) attached to the end of what functions as a prodding stick with which they scavenge through piles of waste, attracting iron, a higher priced material. (Caption: Peeyush Sekhsaria)
Some ragpickers collect just the cloth from the waste which also eventually ends up at a recycling unit.
Big piles of cloth – pillow covers, curtains, torn shirts, dresses and other such discards piled by ragpickers.
Besides scavenging crows, cows, pigs and dogs formed their own community of waste feeders at Bhalswa landfill, Delhi.
A part of waste was on fire, when asked about it, kids told me that people working here (municipality employees) burn it. But when they were asked, they totally denied it.
Besides scavenging crows, cows, pigs and dogs formed their own community of waste feeders at Bhalswa landfill, Delhi.
A Pig poses especially for my camera at Bhalswa landfill, Delhi.
A young boy sitting in a pile of sorted garbage at Bhalswa landfill, Delhi.
The birds seen in the picture are Kites, Black Kites to be precise, they are mainly scavengers, unlike eagles (also very rare) that are birds of prey. Kite numbers are very large in cities and growing partly because of ample food in the form on increasing waste. Earlier some of this work was done by Vultures who are the most efficient scavengers when it comes to dead cattle, but they have virtually disappeared (will need another mail to detail this). There has also been a substantial increase in the number of other scavenging animals and birds like Dogs, rats, pigs, crows etc.
Another worker poses for my camera at Bhalswa landfill, Delhi. They keep their noses and face covered due to the intolerable stench of decaying vegetable waste and animal waste.
A young girl sorting through waste she collected at Bhalswa landfill site.
Three young boys sit-up from their work as they see me click a picture of them at Bhalswa landfill, Delhi.
All pictures are a copyright of Rohit Sharma published here with consent. Please don’t use or reproduce without permission from the photographer.
