Muzamil Bhat

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

large_001-IMG_0831-MB.jpg

medium_001-IMG_0831-MB.jpg

small_001-IMG_0831-MB.jpg

thumbnail_001-IMG_0831-MB.jpg

001-IMG_0831-MB.jpg

Every morning, the entire Sheikh family sets out to work. Fatima leaves her home in a slum colony in the Batamaloo area of central Srinagar at 9 a.m. and till around 5 in the evening she cycles roughly 20 kilometres within the city to collect discarded plastic bottles and gatta (cardboard). Her husband, Mohammad Qurban Sheikh, sometimes goes further, beyond city limits, to towns and villages within a 30-kilometre radius looking for discarded items – using, like Fatima, a three-wheel cycle-rickshaw with a tempo-like container at the back. Their daughter and two sons, ages ranging from 17 to 21, also collect waste in Srinagar.Together, the five help clear a fraction of the 450-500 tons of garbage that Srinagar&#39;s households, hotels, construction sites, vegetable mandis and various other locations produce every single day – that’s the number given by the Srinagar Municipal Corporation.The Sheikh family – and numerous other waste-pickers – are not formally linked to the waste management processes of the municipal corporation, which employs, says municipal commissioner Athar Amir Khan, around 4,000 sanitation workers either full-time or on contract to collect and dispose the city’s solid waste. “Rag-pickers though are our best friends,” says Nazir Ahmad, chief sanitation officer, Srinagar Municipal Corporation. “They take away plastic waste which cannot decompose even in 100 years.” The rag-pickers are not only ‘self-employed’, they work without any protective gear in very hazardous conditions – made even more unsafe due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “I resumed work [after the lockdown eased in January 2021] keeping faith in god. I work with pure intentions to feed my family and know I will not get infected…” says 40-year-old Fatima.

02-IMG_5829-MB.jpg

The same fear and faith drive 35-year-old Mohammad Kabeer, who lives in a slum colony in the Soura area of central Srinagar, and has been a waste-picker since 2002. “If I get infected [by Covid], I worry it will pass on to my family. But I cannot let them starve, so I go out to do my job. When this corona started, I took a loan of 50,000 rupees from my thekadar [scrap dealer]. Now I have to repay, so I came out for work knowing that there is a risk.” Kabeer’s is the only income that sustains his six-member family – his wife and their two daughters and two sons, ages ranging from 2 to 18.He and other sanitation workers endure numerous other risks too. “We don’t know what is in the garbage, we sometimes get cuts from blades, sometimes a used injection needle pricks us,” says 45-year-old Iman Ali, who lives in the HMT area in north Srinagar. As flimsy protection against these injuries, he gets an anti-tetanus shot every few months at a government hospital or clinic. After collecting 50-80 kilos every day, the workers segregate the discarded items on open plots near their huts. They then fill the plastic, cardboard, aluminum tins and other material into large plastic sacks. “If it’s in tons, scrap dealers send their truck here. But mostly we don’t stock, we sell what we have collected and for that we have to cycle another 4-5 kilometres to the dealers,” says Mohammad Qurban Sheikh. The dealers pay Rs. 8 per kilo of plastic and Rs. 5 for every kilo of cardboard. The waste-pickers, Sheikh adds, usually work for 15-20 days a month and the remaining days are spent segregating what they have collected. His five-member family together earns a total of around Rs. 20,000 a month by selling waste items. “From this we have to pay the monthly [house] rent of 5,000 rupees,” says Fatima, “buy food, pay for the maintenance of the cycle [three-wheeler] and take care of other basic needs. In short, we eat what we earn, ours is not a job where one can save money.”

03-IMG_1275-MB.jpg

Her family and the other waste-pickers usually have selling arrangements with specific scrap dealers – there are around 50-60 in various parts of Srinagar, estimates Riyaz Ahmad, a 39-year-old dealer in Bemina in the north of the city. “They [rag-pickers] bring almost one ton of plastic and around 1.5 tons of cardboard to my junkyard every day,” he says. At times, there are intermediaries like Iman Hussain in this chain of recycling. “I do the job of a middleman between them [the rag-pickers] and the kabadiwalas [scrap dealers] for this entire colony,” says 38-year-old Iman, referring to his slum in the HMT area in north Srinagar. “I get 50 paisa to 2 rupees per kilo as commission from them [the rag-pickers] depending on the quality of plastic and cardboard collected. Usually, I make 8,000-10,000 rupees a month.”The waste that is not recycled finds its way (most of it) to the Achan Soura dumping ground in the Saidapora area of central Srinagar. It was started in 1986 by the municipal corporation on roughly 65 acres, which was later extended to 175 acres due to the increase in the amount of solid waste generated in Srinagar. At the dumping ground, around 120 rag-pickers, “unofficially registered” with the municipal corporation, have been given permission to collect plastic there, says chief sanitation officer Nazir Ahmad, &quot;and they collect approximately 10 tons every day.” While the growing city continues to relentlessly generate plastic and other waste,  the frequent disruptions in Kashmir and the lockdowns have forced many waste-pickers to seek loans from scrap dealers, or they have relied on local mosques for food during the lean months.Beyond these hardships, it’s another problem that bothers them the most: “We don’t get respect from people because of our work,” says Iman Hussain. “Some accuse us of stealing, though we never steal,  we just collect the plastic and cardboard that people throw away. But how does it matter? God above knows that we do our work with honesty.”

04-IMG_0804-MB.jpg

05-IMG_0916-MB.jpg

06-IMG_0898-MB.jpg

07-IMG_0899-MB.jpg

08-IMG_0931-MB.jpg

09-IMG_3217-MB.jpg

010-IMG_0845-MB.jpg

11-IMG_3233-MB.jpg

12-IMG_2941-MB.jpg

13-IMG_5871-MB.jpg

14-IMG_5841-MB.jpg

15-IMG_5847-MB.jpg

16-IMG_0859-MB.jpg

17-IMG_5857-MB.jpg

18-IMG_5832-MB.jpg

19-IMG_5825-MB.jpg

20-IMG_8191-MB.jpg

21-IMG_0901-MB.jpg

This story is part of a series of 25 articles on livelihoods under lockdown, supported by the Business and Community Foundation.

Srinagar’s waste-pickers: fear, faith and plastic

ಶ್ರೀನಗರದ ಮರುಬಳಕೆ ವಸ್ತುಗಳ ಸಂಗ್ರಾಹಕರು: ಭಯ, ನಂಬಿಕೆ ಮತ್ತು ಪ್ಲಾಸ್ಟಿಕ್‌

ଭୟ ଓ ଭଗବାନଙ୍କ ପ୍ରତି ବିଶ୍ୱାସ ମଧ୍ୟରେ ଶ୍ରୀନଗରର ବର୍ଜ୍ୟବସ୍ତୁ ସଂଗ୍ରହକାରୀଙ୍କ ଜୀବିକା ନିର୍ବାହ

ভয়-ভৰসা আৰু আৱৰ্জনাৰ মাজত জাবৰ বোটলা জীৱিকা

ਸ਼੍ਰੀਨਗਰ ਦੇ ਕੂੜਾ-ਚੁਗਣ ਵਾਲ਼ੇ: ਢਿੱਡ ਦੀ ਹੂਕ ਹਰ ਡਰ ਹਰ ਯਕੀਨ ਤੋਂ ਉੱਪਰ

ശ്രീനഗറില്‍ പാഴ്വസ്തുക്കള്‍ ശേഖരിക്കുന്നവര്‍ നേരിടുന്ന പ്രശ്നങ്ങള്‍

ত্রাস, আস্থা এবং প্লাস্টিকে বাঁধা শ্রীনগরের বর্জ্য সংগ্রহকারীদের একদিন প্রতিদিন

குப்பை சேகரிப்பவர்களின் பயமும் நம்பிக்கையும் பிளாஸ்டிக்கும்

’مجھے اللہ پر بھروسہ ہے اور میں اس کا نام لیکر کام کیلئے باہر نکلتی ہوں‘

श्रीनगर: कोविड के डर और आर्थिक संकट के बीच झूलते कचरा बीनने वाले सफ़ाईकर्मी

Srinagar

At present, we can only accept donations in Indian rupees by Indian citizens. All donations made to the CounterMedia Trust are eligible for exemption under Section 80G of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Here is a copy of our exemption certificate.


India is bigger than New Delhi. And people need to know more about the rest of this vast nation.


Younger, media-saturated generations are growing up knowing little about their country, but a lot about the elites of a few metros and towns. For a narrowly-owned, commercially-driven media, the dumbing down of a nation is part of standard operating procedure. The last available data of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS, Delhi) show us that reports from New Delhi account for 66 per cent of news on the front pages of major dailies. The CMS data also found that just about 0.24 per cent of front page news came out of rural India. The TV channels are not much better.PARI exists to change that.We are a non-profit organisation. We publish under creative commons, and do not charge readers a subscription fee or put-up advertisements. Nothing is behind a paywall and we are completely free-to-access by anyone. We guard our independence and receive no direct grants from governments and corporations, nor any funding that could dictate our content. So, we are dependent on volunteer labour, donations from individuals, foundations and institutions that see value in independent and free media.PARI is changing the way Indian journalism reports and documents the rural.India is more than the elite of a few metros and towns. We report on rural lives and livelihoods, languages, communities, migrants and more. We need your help to pull off this most ambitious of Indian journalistic endeavours. The scale of this effort costs money. Donate generously - and spread the word about PARI.&nbsp;

Donate FAQs


Let’s get you acquainted

Welcome to PARI

All our content is, and will forever be free to consume. If you enjoy our work, you can support us by becoming a volunteer or by donating to help fund our work.

Want to republish this article? Please write to <a href="mailto:zahra@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">zahra@ruralindiaonline.org</a> with a cc to <a href="mailto:namita@ruralindiaonline.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">namita@ruralindiaonline.org</a>

Srinagar’s waste-pickers: fear, faith and plastic

Srinagar city generates 500 tons of garbage every day. In addition to municipal workers, an informal workforce of waste-pickers clears a big chunk of it every day, keeping aside fears of Covid and other hazards

Related stories

A rain-scented walk in Sivagangai

Living on ravaged land

Biswas and the bamboos on his bike

Recycling energy, Godda style

Bhadels of Goa

Pookadai: still throbbing with morning life

Koli Kadlas

Malnourishment high among children of migrants: study

Wheels of the rural Indian West

Living Under a Red Cloud in Bellary

Vedla – earrings of the Maher community

Dreaming of water, drowning in debt

Kali: the dancer and his dreams

Farmer's diet worse than a convict's

In Yavatmal, life goes on

Suicides are about the living, not the dead

Death of a carpenter

Hoisa Shigmo!

Women farmers: weaving a life in Anantapur

Defiant in Dhinkia

Spice and all that's nice

Kerala's Green Army

The ‘jugaad’ not-a-mobile

Health as someone else's wealth

Calibrating in a Kudumbashree assembly unit