“Since they mostly just use their hands, they are already contaminated by touching everything from diapers to diabetes syringes,” said Bharati Chaturvedi, founder of the New Delhi-based Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group.Chaturvedi, who has worked with waste pickers for more than two decades, said extreme heat has added new risks to waste pickers, who are already victims of social discrimination and appalling work conditions.”It’s been a terrible, terrible, terrible year,” she said. “They already expect to suffer from the heat and that gives them a lot of anxiety, because they don’t know if they’ll make it, if they’ll survive it (the summer).”Chaturvedi said this year’s heat has “been the most catastrophic thing one could imagine,” adding that “It’s really very sad to look at how the poor are trying to live somehow, just take their bodies and try to reach the end of this heat wave in some form of being intact.”Heat planning and public health experts say that people who are forced to work outdoors are at most risk due to prolonged heat exposure. Heatstroke, cardiovascular diseases and chronic kidney diseases are some of the risks from working outdoors during high heat.Waste pickers “are among the most vulnerable and highly exposed to heat,” said Abhiyant Tiwari, who leads the climate resilience team at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s India program.In New Delhi, some people who work the capital city’s estimated 4.2 million annual tons of garbage have cut back from two meals a day to just one, said Ruksana Begum, a 41-year-old waste picker at the Bhalswa landfill in the city.”They are trying to avoid work because of the heat since if they go to work they end up spending more at the hospital than for their food,” Begum said.Tiwari and Chaturvedi both said it’s essential to give waste pickers access to a regular water supply, shade, or a relatively cool building near the landfills. They should also be encouraged to avoid working in high heat and given prompt medical care when they need it, they added.Tiwari said India has taken significant steps to devise heat action plans but implementing the plans all across the country is a challenge. “As a society, we have a responsibility to protect them (garbage pickers),” said Tiwari. Simple steps can help, such as offering them water if they’re standing outside people’s homes, rather than asking them to leave, he said.Geeta Devi, a 55-year-old garbage picker also at the Bhalswa landfill in New Delhi, says when she feels dizzy in the heat, she takes shelter and sometimes someone gives her water or food. But she has to work to earn the 150-200 rupees ($1.80 to $2.40) per day that puts food on the table for her children. “It is difficult to do my job because of the heat. But I have no other job,” she said.
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