as bone meal for crops. The repulsive settings these bone meal shops haunts Krishna of these which are dark, dingy and filled unbearable stench which lingered throughout the day on a person. As the city grew, the slaughter house was removed and shifted to the edge of the city, the buyers moved away and along with that the earnings of the family disappeared. It was then the family discovered life could be made up with picking from garbage.
Read MoreMansoor
Mansoor is 33 years old. He has thin, wiry frame and a beaming smile.
He has six sisters and two brothers. He is the oldest.
He attended a small Government school near his home. Mansoor had no interest in school but would regularly attend informal tuition classes conducted by Mythri Sarva Seva Samithi. He dropped out of school in 5th grade when his father passed away. As the oldest son, the burden of responsibility to take care of his brothers and sisters feel upon his tender shoulders.
He joined the informal waste sector with his mother to help supplement the family income. His parents ran a small scrap shop near their home. All the wastepickers from their slum would bring their daily collection to the shop. Mansoor was responsible was sorting, segregating and weighing the scrap. They would manage around 500kgs of waste each day.
Read MoreSadashiviah
Sadashiviah has light green eyes. The hair has left the top of his head and circles the perimeter like a crown. He has light stubble and a salt and pepper moustache. His wife is petite. She supports her husband in business operation and in conversation. Sadashiviah has 4 children. His oldest two daughters are married. His sons work in the DWCC; one of them is studying in 2nd PUC.
Sadashiviah never went to school. His parents worked in construction. They worked long hours and earned barely enough to provide food and shelter for the family. When he was still a small child, he began Wastepicking. It was the only avenue for him to earn a few rupees to help his family. He would earn Rs 100 a day.
At the age of 19, Sadashiviah had entrepreneurial dreams. He bought a second hand cycle and fixed it up. He would cycle from 8.30 a.m to 5 p.m in the neighbourhoods around his home and collect recyclable scrap from roadside dumps. With his cycle he could cover longer distances during the day and collect more scrap. At the end of the day he would sell everything he had managed to collect to a scrap shop. He would collect 100-150kgs each day and earn 250-300Rs.
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