A week before Diwali in 2005, over 80,000 rag pickers gathered waste near India Gate. These rag pickers wanted to be recognized because they work in such filthy and disease full conditions. They do not get any water for sanitation, so they are always filthy. The children of these rag pickers, who also do this, get no education. They also often fall into bad company.

Garbage is something that you and your family are throwing away everyday and it is becoming a major problem. There has always been a lot of garbage in Delhi but since the beginning of the 2000’s, the amount of garbage in Delhi and the amount of garbage thrown away in Delhi everyday has been going up rapidly and in just a few more years, the whole of Delhi will be a major dump site. This isn’t the only concern about garbage…

A lot of garbage is often dangerous. If you just leave your garbage in the dump sites and don’t care what happens to it just as long as it’s out of your site, toxins will start coming out of the garbage and start polluting anyone near it. These toxins come into your body and make you very sick. Toxins such as Lead which comes from mostly paint can make you very sick and on rare occasions, even make you die.

Currently there is about 24,500,000 kg’s of garbage just in Delhi alone with rag pickers collection only 20% of the total amount of garbage in Delhi. The approximate garbage rise per year is 2930000kg’s of garbage. Therefore, the prediction for the amount of garbage in Delhi next year will be around 27,000,000kg’s of garbage.

There are lots of ways in which we can prevent garbage rises in Delhi and stop Delhi from becoming a major dump site city. These include simple ways such as Reducing, Reusing, and of course good old Recycling. Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling can be from setting up compost piles, to separating your kind of garbage (Paper in one bin, Food scraps in another etc), to even the simplest things, such as just finishing your plate at the dinner table!