Title: Occupational health hazards faced by female waste-picking children in urban India: a case study of Bangalore City

Authors: Raj Dhruvarajan, Mohan Arkanath

Addresses: Department of Economics, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. ' Senior Health Officer in Medicine, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King's Lynn, Norfolk, UK

Abstract: The paper presents the results of an investigation into the health hazards faced by waste picking children in Bangalore, the capital of the state of Karnataka in South India. The city of five million, has experienced phenomenal growth in recent decades as a result of large migration from rural parts of the state as well as neighbouring states. Most of these migrants fail to find paid work and end up in the sizeable informal sector, trying to eke out a living through self-employment. Many of the least skilled take up waste picking as their primary or supplementary occupation. Waste picking (WP) children often supplement the family income, but at times may be the major breadwinner of the family. Most of the WP children belong to the poorest families from among the lowest castes. They invariably live in slums in highly unhygienic conditions. Households in the city produce about 2,200 metric tons of solid waste daily, of which only about 80% is cleared. The waste is deposited in concrete bins on city streets for pick up by city trucks. Before the waste is picked up, the waste pickers rummage through the garbage looking for recyclable materials such as paper, plastics, metals and glass. The retrieved materials are then sold to small neighbourhood retail waste buyers. In view of the tropical conditions in the city, the waste in the bins putrefies quickly, attracting rodents, stray cats, dogs and cats as well as disease spreading vectors like flies, mosquitoes and cockroaches, making it a great health risk for waste pickers. While picking waste, the children almost never use any protection for their hands and feet or for breathing. We find in the study that, even when compared to other slum dwelling children, WP children have a significantly higher incidence of gastrointestinal, dermatological and respiratory diseases, in addition to the severe nutritional deficiency suffered by all slum children. This situation points up the need for targeted programmes for the prevention and treatment of the health problems as well as the general social and economic problems of waste pickers who perform the very useful social function of reduction and recycling of waste.

Keywords: occupational health; health hazards; female children; waste picking; urban India; health risks; waste pickers; waste reduction; waste recycling; gastrointestinal diseases; dermatological diseases; respiratory diseases; child labour.

DOI: 10.1504/IER.2000.053860

Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, 2000 Vol.2 No.1, pp.95 - 113

Published online: 13 May 2013 *

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