Thread by @sneha_sharma12

Modern municipal waste disposal is not limited to removal of garbage but involves a strategic churning out of unwanted people. This is seen through a massive fire (2016) managed by displacing waste-workers @ Deonar dump 1/10 @DiscardStudies #Discard2020 go.nasa.gov/3lMdeyU

Through ethnographic work conducted over 11 months (2016-17) I found that criminalization & blame are central to the removal of waste-workers from Mumbai’s Deonar landfill by labelling them as ‘illegal’ & rendering them unwanted. 2/10 #Discard2020

Landfills globally succeed in keeping waste ‘out of sight & out of mind’ except during moments of disruption. Toxic smoke from an exhausted Deonar engulfed Mumbai, triggering demands for its closure & exhibiting a forgotten landfill 3/10 #Discard2020
bit.ly/2Ha8Xqg

Middle-class residents protested, accused the govt. & municipal corporation (MC) for poor waste management. MC suspecting sabotage blamed the waste-workers & 13 were arrested. High Court ordered securing of dump & encouraged a WTE plant4/10 #Discard2020 bit.ly/35wn6qW

For decades, waste-workers from low-caste Dalit & Muslim communities have laboured at the dump facing frequent fires & lived at the margins. They work w/ tacit approval by the state in toxic & precarious conditions to reduce ~5000M/T unsegregated waste of city 5/10 #Discard2020

MC labelled waste-workers as ‘miscreants’ & banned their entry to the dump by cancelling permits, installed CCTVs, watchtowers & security guards. Losing their source of livelihood, ~200 waste-workers sought redressal by mobilizing & protesting w/ help of NGO 6/10. #Discard2020

MC’s officials refused to constructively address the waste-workers’ plight either by withholding information on future plans for waste management or impelling them to navigate complex bureaucratic hierarchies for more than a year 7/10 #Discard2020

Process of blame, criminalization & coercion diffused waste-workers’ collective mobilization over time. By making them ‘illegal’ waste-workers were discarded from waste economy, forced into exploitative negotiations w/ guards or migrate to other precarious jobs 8/10 #Discard2020

Municipal waste managers buy into green-washed state-sanctioned & capital intensive waste-burning solutions. Blame for disruptions (eg. fire) is used to justify cleansing of spaces from informal workers for creation of secured enclosures, paving way for WTE 9/10 #Discard2020 #BMC

By controlling narratives, criminalizing waste-workers & introducing WTE it is evident that it is the MC who decides what is valuable & who can be discarded. Thus, disposal of unwanted workers is central to implementing modernist solutions of waste management 10/10 #Discard2020