For millions of Indians, extreme summer heat makes their daily lives even more difficult.
The stench of burning garbage wafts for miles from a landfill on the outskirts of Jammu, India – a potentially toxic miasma created by the waste produced by some 740,000 people.
However, some citizens have no choice but to ignore the smoke and stifling heat to sort their waste. They are forced to look for something valuable to sell in order to earn the equivalent of €3.70 a day at best.
“If we don’t do this, we won’t have anything to eat,” explains 65-year-old Usmaan Shekh. “When it’s too hot, we try to take a break for a few minutes, but often we continue until we can’t take it anymore. »
Shekh and his family are among the 1.5 million to 4 million people who survive by scavenging India’s trash. But climate change is making this dangerous job more dangerous than ever.
In Jammu, located in the foothills of the Himalayas, temperatures have often exceeded 43°C this summer.
At least one person who died during the recent heatwave in northern India has been identified as a garbage collector.
How dangerous are India’s landfills to those forced to work near them?
Rising summer temperatures in landfills increase emissions of gases such as methane and carbon dioxide, which can be dangerous to breathe at the landfill level due to oxygen depletion.
Plus, almost all landfill fires happen in the summer and can burn for days.
India produces at least 62 billion kilograms of waste a year, and some of its landfills – like the one in Ghaziabad, near New Delhi – are veritable mountains of garbage.
Although a 2016 law mandated waste sorting to prevent hazardous materials from ending up in landfills, the law has been poorly enforced, increasing risks for waste collectors.
The accumulation of waste is already dangerous: climate change is making it worse
“Since they usually use only their hands, they are already contaminated by touching everything from diapers to diabetes syringes,” says Bharati Chaturvedi, founder of the New Delhi-based Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group.
Chaturvedi, who has worked with waste pickers for more than two decades, says extreme heat has added new risks to waste pickers who already face social discrimination and terrible working conditions.
“It’s been a terrible, terrible, terrible year,” he said. “They’re already expecting to suffer from the heat, and it’s causing them a lot of anxiety because they don’t know if they’re going to get through it, if they’re going to survive (the summer). »
‘The most disastrous thing’ – why this year’s heat has been a disaster for garbage collectors?
Chaturvedi adds that this year’s heat has been “the most catastrophic thing imaginable”.
“It’s really sad to see the poor trying to survive as best they can, taking their bodies and getting to the end of this heatwave intact. »
Thermal planning and public health experts say people forced to work outdoors are at greater risk of prolonged heat exposure.
Heat stroke, cardiovascular and chronic kidney disease are some of the risks of working in such conditions.
Abhiyant Tiwari, who leads the climate resilience team at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s India program, says waste pickers are “the most vulnerable and the most exposed to heat.”
It seems that the heat is making life more difficult for many of them.
Why some Indian scavengers avoid eating to survive
In New Delhi, some workers working to eliminate 4.2 billion kilos of waste a year in the capital have gone from eating twice a day to one.
“They try to work because of the heat, because if they go to work, they spend money on hospital rather than food,” said Ruksana Begum, a 41-year-old waste collector at the Bhalswa dump in the city.
Both Tiwari and Chaturvedi stress the importance of giving waste pickers access to a regular water supply, shade or a relatively cool building near the dumpsites.
According to experts, it is necessary to prevent them from working at high temperatures and provide them with emergency medical care if needed.
But it’s not always that simple.
Translating heat policy into concrete actions is a challenge
While Tiwari said India has taken important steps to develop heat action plans, the reality of implementing them domestically poses a significant challenge.
“As a society, we have a duty to protect them (garbage pickers),” says Tiwari, suggesting that if people stop in front of their houses, they can offer them water instead of asking them to leave.
Geeta Devi, a 55-year-old garbage collector who also works at the Bhalswa landfill in New Delhi, says that when she gets dizzy from the heat, she takes shelter and sometimes someone gives her water or food.
But no matter how she feels, she has to work to earn 150 to 200 rupees (about 1.65 to 2.25 euros) a day to feed her children.
“It’s hard to do my job because of the heat, but I don’t have anything else to do,” he says.