Even as the National Capital Region looks at 10 new landfill sites to dump its ever burgeoning waste in, there is scant attention being paid to the workers’ conditions here.
Environmental hazards aside, the health implications of working on the waste sites is perilous to say the least.
It is no secret that people belonging to the lower castes are engaged in the jobs, and social discrimination notwithstanding, neglecting their working conditions does not bode well.
The camera trains its viewfinder on top of the massive garbage heap in Ghazipur, an exhausted landfill that is soon going to be sealed. There is speculation of what will be done with it, with suggestions that the administration follows the Kolkata way and turns it into a green landscape.
Whatever happens to the old landfills, the plans for the new landfills cannot be ethical if the working condition for workers here is not improved. The government may need to relook at why in a technology intensive world does garbage need to be handled by humans in the first place.
