by JAMMU, India (AP) – The foul smell of burning garbage wafts for miles from the landfill on the outskirts of Jammu in a potentially toxic miasma fueled by plastics, industrial, medical and other waste. generates a city of about 740,000 people. But a handful of waste pickers ignore the smoke and heat to sort the trash, trying to sell whatever they can to earn the equivalent of $4 a day.
“If we don’t do this, we don’t get any food to eat,” said 65-year-old Usmaan Shekh. on until we can’t.”
Shekh and his family are among the estimated 1.5 to 4 million people who destroy a livelihood searching through India’s waste – a hazardous job made more dangerous than ever by climate change. In Jammu, a city in northern India at the foothills of the Himalayas, the temperature this summer is regularly above 43 degrees Celsius (about 110 degrees Fahrenheit).
At least one person who recently died in northern India has been identified as a garbage picker.
The landfills see themselves inward as the garbage decomposes, and the summer heat rises and speeds up the process. This increases emissions of gases such as methane and carbon dioxide which are dangerous to breathe. And nearly all landfill fires occur in the summer, experts say, and can burn for days.
At the Jammu landfill, small fires engulfed the massive pile, sending up plumes of smoke as two men pulled a frayed tarp loaded with garbage on the day Associated Press journalists visited. A 6-year-old boy hit an army of plastic sandals. As other harvesters occasionally took shelter from the heat, birds circled overhead, occasionally searching for scraps.
India generates at least 62 million tons of waste a year, according to federal government records, and some of its landfills, like the Ghaziabad landfill outside New Delhi, are literal mountains of garbage. And while a 2016 law made it mandatory to separate waste so that hazardous material does not find its way to landfills, the law has been poorly enforced, increasing the risk to waste pickers.
“Since they mostly only use their hands, they are already contaminated by touching everything from diapers to diabetes syringes,” said Bharati Chaturvedi, founder of the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group which is based in New Delhi.
Chaturvedi, who has worked with waste pickers for more than two decades, said extreme heat has added new risks to waste managers who are already victims of social discrimination and appalling working conditions.
“It was a terrible, terrible, terrible year,” she said. “They are already expecting to suffer from the heat and that worries them a lot, because they don’t know if they will make it, if they will survive it (the summer).
Chaturvedi said this year’s heat was “the most disastrous thing one could imagine” adding that it is “very sad to see how the poor are trying to survive somehow, just build their bodies and try to end this heat wave. to be somehow safe.”
Heat planning and public health experts say people who are forced to work outdoors are most at risk from prolonged heat exposure. Heat stroke, cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease are some of the risks associated with working outdoors in high heat.
Waste pickers are “among the most vulnerable and most exposed to heat,” said Abhiyant Tiwari, who leads the climate resilience team at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s India program.
In New Delhi, some people who handle the capital’s estimated 4.2 million tonnes of annual garbage have cut back from two meals a day to just one, said Ruksana Begum, a 41-year-old waste picker at the Bhalswa landfill. in the city.
“They want to avoid work because of the heat since if they go to work they spend more in the hospital than they spend on their food,” said Begum.
Both Tiwari and Chaturvedi said it is essential to give waste managers access to a regular supply of water, shade, or a reasonably cool building near the landfills. They should also be encouraged to avoid working in high heat and be given prompt medical attention when they need it, they said.
Tiwari said India has taken significant steps to formulate heat action plans but implementing the plans across the country is a challenge.
“As a society, we have a responsibility to protect them (garbage pickers),” Tiwari said. Simple steps can help, such as offering them water if they are standing outside people’s homes, rather than asking them to leave, he said.
Geeta Devi, also a 55-year-old garbage picker at the Bhalswa landfill in New Delhi, says that when she feels dizzy in the heat she shelters and sometimes someone gives her water or food. But she has to work to earn the 150-200 rupees ($1.80 to $2.40) a day that puts food on the table for her children.
“It’s hard to do my job because of the heat. But I don’t have any other job,” she said.
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Follow Sibi Arasu on X at @sibi123
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Arasu reported from Bengaluru and Nagpal reported from New Delhi.
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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage is financially supported by multiple private foundations. AP is responsible for each and every subject. Find AP standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and covered areas of funding at AP.org.
