While waste picking is a low-paid and often a dangerous job, these workers are doing much of the world’s recycling. In Mumbai, a city of 20 million people, the trash headed for recycling ends up in Dharavi, a slum where thousands of waste pickers live and work. They sort through the piles, and clean and separate the different types of materials destined for a second or third life. Without them, Namrata Kolachalam reports, much of the city’s trash would end up in incinerators or dumped in the ocean.
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