A rubbish way to make a living?

Outside my front door there are skips piled high with rubbish. People pick through the contents all day long.

I am staying at the Cultural Centre, owned by the Deep Griha Society (my hosts while I volunteer). It’s in a middle class area so I was a little surprised to be greeted by overflowing skips when I arrived. 

It’s not an uncommon sight in India to see people picking through trash, but I’ve learned there’s a bit more to this particular scene.

Rag-pickers, as the people are known, have unionised in Pune. As a result the people outside my building are paid to sort the rubbish into different types to be taken away. If they find anything valuable (such as waste metal) they can sell it themselves.

Occasionally I see that the rag-pickers have got through all of the rubbish. The street looks temporarily clean and tidy. I like to think that the rag-pickers are able to feel some form of satisfaction at having created such a neat pile of bags from such a smelly mess. The tidy scene passes quickly – as I write I am watching the skips being topped up, bag by bag. The bags are carried in procession through the streets by another type of worker.

In theory it’s the law for all residents in Pune to split their waste into wet and dry. Once it is finally sorted (by the residents or by the rag-pickers), the organic waste is taken to a bio-energy plant.

The sorting continues all day. At dusk torches come out, and the activity continues well into the evening. It may well continue all night. We have a 11.30pm curfew so I’ve not been able to see.

By day the workers chase away the herds of pigs that come to sniff about for morsels. By night they shoe away packs of marauding dogs that come to do the same.