# Living inside a landfill



## Tude (Apr 15, 2015)

This photographer has several projects on the people who live in and are involved with landfills around the world. I found this article on CNN - but pics are static and wouldn't copy or be downloaded - so I put on my sherlock holmes hat and tracked down his work. At the second link is a larger story than this CNN article as well as more pics (I snagged a few) -<cough> - and it contains other photographic reports on landfill people from Venezuela and Nicaragua to name a couple. Good reading and pics there as well. 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/14/world/cnnphotos-boragaon-landfill-india/index.html

(the other reports as well as more info on this)
http://www.timothybouldry.com/boragaon-india/







Standing about 5 feet tall with an average wingspan of 8 feet, it soars over the Boragaon landfill like a great protector. It knows the residents and shies away from strangers.

"They are intelligent birds. Every time I got close to them they would fly away," photographer Timothy Bouldrysaid.

The dirty, wet conditions of the landfill attracted the endangered stork, and the stork attracted Bouldry. Through a series of photos taken within a day, he captures what it's like to live inside one of the largest dumping grounds in India.

The Boragaon landfill is located in the city of Guwahati, about 300 miles from Bangladesh near the Bhutanese border. It's 94 acres of mostly fresh waste, surrounded by swamplands. (Other landfills, Bouldry says, contain older, compacted trash.)






Photographer Timothy Bouldry
For the past seven years, Bouldry has traveled the world photographing landfills. He's visited places such as Haiti, Venezuela and Colombia. The greater adjutant stork initially drew Bouldry to Boragaon, but he became connected with the people.

About 100 families live inside the Boragaon landfill. Every day, they search the area for treasure -- a tiny scrap of metal, a bit of plastic, maybe a bone. They use large hooks to sort through the garbage, which sometimes reaches two or three stories high. They work in teams, and more than often they are barefoot.

"They don't look at the things they're doing as being unsanitary or unhealthy or unsafe," Bouldry said.

They collect plastic, metal and wires and sell it by the pound. The families make around $2 per day.

Their homes are constructed by recycled materials, with sometimes several families living in one shanty at a time. With no electricity, no running water -- and an overabundance of trash -- they are experts at repurposing.

"You might see a refrigerator being used as a closet," he said.

Some of the children living in Boragaon go to school on scholarship, but most of them work in the landfill to provide for their families.

But don't be deceived: The people living here feel anything but destitute. Bouldry uses words such as "love," "hope" and "spirituality" to describe them.

"I found that the landfill community is content," Bouldry said. "They are not jaded by modern civilization."

Bouldry lives and works inside the La Chureca landfill in Nicaragua, one of the largest landfills in the world. He helps the people living there grow gardens fertilized with compost he makes with organic waste from local smoothie shops. In addition to his photography, he teaches English and yoga classes a few times per week.

But why? Bouldry went to art school in Boston. He's no stranger to sophisticated civilization.

He said he found humanitarian photo projects to be the most fulfilling, and he became especially intrigued by landfills even though they are "scary, dirty and kind of grotesque."

"This is my 'thank you' to the informal recyclers of the world," he said.


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## Sip (Apr 15, 2015)

I hope they don't get tossed out of the landfill now. Awesome article with excellent pictures. Thanks Tude!


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## Kal (Apr 15, 2015)

Cool


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## longhammer (Apr 20, 2015)

I have seen this in India. Remarkable the way these guys and gals make a living! Imagine what they could do if someone gave them more to work with!


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