Projects and exhibitions
 
"Tracing Waste - The Kabaris' Contribution to Society"
Photographs
Project description
Photographer
Hiring the exhibition

Project description

What happens to my plastic bottle after I throw it away? Who is taking care about my garbage? Who are these people who earn their living by collecting and recycling waste?

We live in a world, in which we take most things in our daily life for granted. Day per day millions of stories of happiness and agony are written around us, and we don’t even get to read their introduction. Occupied with our own worries and desires, distracted by the media and consumption, we have forgotten, that every action brings about a reaction and that, at the end of the day, other people have to bear with the costs for our of comfortable lives.

Worldwide over 125 Million tons of plastic are produced annually: bottles, bags, packagings… The resulting garbage, among many other things, ends up on dump-sides, garbage incineration plant, or is exported – legally and illegally – in countries like China or India. In Indian mega-cities, for instance, an estimated 1% of the population is working in the informal sector of the waste industry: collecting waste, on dump-sides or in micro factories.

Over a period of three months, the photographer Enrico Fabian documented – in collaboration with the Indian NGO Chintan (www.chintan-india.org) – the live of the waste-pickers and recyclers in New Dehli, the Kabaris. While he traced the refuse of this mega metropolis, far beyond its city limits and spent weeks on enormous mountains of rubbish, he discovered a world of its own: instead of unorganized dumping, he encountered a complex system of recycling plants and composting sites, behind an overwhelming rush of sounds, smells, animals and people.

Enrico Fabian shared his time with waste pickers and recyclers of all ages and learned thus about their lives, their worries and their dreams. Through their work, thousands of tons of waste are taken care of daily, and the cities are kept alive. The biggest part of the refuse is reused, which is more important than ever today, in times of shortage of natural resources.
 
The documentation “Tracing Waste – The Kabaris’ Contribution to Society” gives an insight into the lives of these people and tells the story of those, who take care daily – under inconceivable circumstances – about the clearance and recycling of waste, produced amongst others by ourselves. Despite the importance and difficulty of their work, they make only a marginal income and are often socially ostracized.