In India unemployed people earn a living by recycling trash saving the cities from becoming a toxic waste dump.  In Dharavi, unemployed workers, mainly children sift through and collect 8.5 million metric tons of garbage and trash everyday for recycling and repurposing.

In India, The Acorn Foundation India Trust aims to organise ragpickers and train them in scientific methods of waste handling, segregation and recycling, bringing a measure of respect to their work. If it wasn’t for the ragpickers Dharavi’s would be one giant toxic waste dump.

Now there’s an initiative afoot to help the ragpicker groups. The Acorn Foundation India Trust is set to organise these workers and train them in scientific methods of waste handling, segregation and recycling. Highlighting their work in protection of the environment, so the government can set up a board whereby polluters pay a cess of about one per cent which and can go towards giving these ragpickers a proper income with safe equipment like gloves and other amenities. They want them to be trained in how to handle toxic waste and expertise in recycling goods in a non-hazardous way.

For a start, all members of the Dharavi Project are being given identity cards. They have formed their own committee which is involved in waste awareness programmes. In one programme, young ragpickers are partnering with schools in waste management. Currently there are some 350 members of the Dharavi Project.

The foundation has also undertaken another initiative— to organise health clinics, programmes and workshops from which young children engaged in ragpicking can get some kind of informal education in music, photography and other arts. We hope such cultural events will help them develop.

Read more at India Together