The putrid smell takes in the throat, even before the arrival at “Mount Everest” of the waste, which stands out for miles around in New Delhi, the most polluted capital in the world. The mixture of rotting, dirty old rubbish and dead animals makes the air foul around this 65-meter-high (about 20 storeys) mountain of rubbish.
This monster has been growing steadily for decades. In 1984, the Indian megalopolis, short of the means to manage the waste production of its population in full demographic explosion, commissioned a landfill in Ghazipur, a district located to the east of the city.
The site should have closed in 2002, when it exceeded its maximum capacity of 20 meters in height, but the City kept it in operation, in the absence of an effective waste management system.
And even today, there are not enough solutions in place to manage the 11,000 tons of waste produced in Delhi every day. Of this amount, about half can be treated in facilities, while the other half ends up in the three main landfills in the capital.
The duty traveled to the foot of the mountain in a rickshaw, commonly known as a “tuk-tuk”, with an Indian guide, Manoj. Even for him, who has resided in the capital all his life, the air is unbreathable. Masks are necessary to prevent nausea.
Every day, more than 700 trucks transport 3,000 tons of waste to the Ghazipur landfill. In the distance, the heavy vehicles seem tiny compared to the immensity of the mountain. In the sky, hundreds of scavenger raptors hover in a circle above the mass of garbage.
Despite the intolerable smell, about three million people live within a 10 km radius of the mountain. And thousands of them depend on the tons of garbage dumped there every day to earn their living.
mountain addicts
Less than a kilometer from the mountain, families go about their business inside a large slum. The small huts made of beaten earth and old building materials are so crowded that it is difficult to estimate their number. The narrow passageways are cluttered with debris and old tools.
In the middle of a dark alley, Shahnoor is resting on the ground, surrounded by a host of children. The duty met her at random during her visit to the slum. None of them wear a mask. The bad smells, the buzzing of flies and the crushing heat do not seem to bother them.
Like most people who live at the foot of the mountain, Shahnoor is a waste picker, or ” ragpicker as the Indians call them. Every day, she climbs the mountain of garbage in search of salvageable materials, such as plastic and cardboard, to resell to recycling plants for a few dollars.
“What can I do about it?” This mountain is the only way to support my family. If I don’t go, then how are we going to fill our stomachs? she laments.
Unsure of her age, Shahnoor says she has been going to the gigantic dump daily for about fifteen years. “Every morning, I leave around 8 a.m. to go to the mountains. I pick up everything that can be salvaged there, and I come back around 5 p.m. I collect the materials for a period of 10 to 15 days, to gather a large quantity before selling them,” she says, looking indifferent. This routine seems harmless to her, despite the dangers it represents.
Like many, Shahnoor is an “informal” waste picker, meaning she is not officially authorized by the government to travel to the site to collect materials. Therefore, she must be discreet every day. “We take different paths to get there. We have to turn back if there are officials,” she explains.
These face-to-face encounters, Azizul knows them. The waste picker met by The duty in the vicinity of the slum had just experienced an incident during one of his ascents of the mountain. The cast covering his arm contrasts with his flamboyant red sweater.
“I was on the site and I saw a policeman. I tried to run to escape, but he caught up with me and hit my hand with a stick. She broke, ”he says alongside his wife and five children.
Azizul has been doing this work for 25 years. His wife and children accompany him to supplement their family income. “We are dependent on the mountain. I can’t imagine any other way we could make a living,” he says.
Obviously, the children are not attending school – a fairly common phenomenon for this class of citizens living in extreme poverty, according to many experts. Together, the seven members of the family earn about 600 Indian rupees a day — or about 10 Canadian dollars.
Is it enough for their expenses? “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. When it rains or it is too hot, it becomes impossible to work. [Lorsqu’on perd ce revenu quotidien]this is where it becomes very difficult financially, ”replies the father of the family.
Unsorted waste
Shahnoor and Azizul are among more than 200,000 waste pickers in Delhi. According to many, their work is essential to the management of the more than 11,000 metric tons of household waste that the city generates daily.
But since the scrap that lands on the mountain is not sorted at source, the quest for recoverable materials is done in conditions that are as repulsive as they are dangerous. Indeed, collectors have to walk through metal, glass or biomedical waste such as bandages and syringes.
The mountain of Ghazipur is also notorious for the fires that break out there due to methane emissions and heat. Last year, record summer temperatures sparked a fire that lasted nearly 50 hours.
” It is for this reason that [les ramasseurs] theoretically not allowed to work there. And given the height, they can fall or get hit during a waste fall,” says Vinod Kumar, a researcher at Toxics Link, an environmental NGO in New Delhi. The latter, who accompanied The duty in the field, is interested in the mountain and its consequences on the inhabitants of the surroundings, such as the contamination of water and food.
“The groundwater is contaminated by waste runoff. The collectors use this water to wash their clothes and dishes, and are sometimes forced to drink it,” says Mr. Kumar.
A tricky future
Following the major fire in 2022, an action plan to clean up the Ghazipur site within the next two years has been announced. “The objective is to treat half of the waste by December 2023 and to reach all of it in December 2024”, specifies Vinod Kumar, who strongly doubts that these deadlines are realistic. On the other hand, what will happen to the thousands of waste pickers who depend on the mountain to survive, even if it is toxic and dangerous?
Last summer, Chintan, a non-profit organization that works for environmental justice, conducted a study among waste pickers who work at another dump in the capital. Nearly 80% of the collectors surveyed said they had been victims of work accidents.
But despite the dangers of the practice, it remains difficult for many, if not impossible, to break out of this vicious circle. “We cannot put an end to the work of waste pickers without offering them another means of earning an income,” firmly replies Shruti Sinha, who works at Chintan. Met in the organization’s offices in New Delhi, the latter believes that, since most would simply try to find other places to collect waste, it would be better for the government to legalize the informal sector to ensure their safety.
Leaving the scene, our guide Manoj heaves a sigh of relief. It was his first time to Ghazipur. The visit shook him… to the point that he intends to go meditate at the temple that very evening.
Like him, many Indians spend their lives in the capital without having to face the environmental horror of “Mount Everest” of waste – another example of the extreme inequalities that persist between social classes in India.
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund.The duty.