Poverty
Langewiesche expounds, “He (Nagarsheth) guided me into the city’s (Mumbai) slums, which are said to be the largest in the world. Then he led me back toward the city center, for miles through a roadside hell where peasants lived wall to wall in scrap boxes and shacks, and naked children sat listless in the traffic's blue smoke as if waiting to die." The peasants in the city dwell in extreme misery and poverty. The dilapidated housing structures offer evidence of the low standards of living in the slums.
Furnace
Langewiesche expounds, “The furnace was long and low. The men working closest to the fire tried to protect themselves by wrapping thick rags around their mouths and legs. They can the steel plates into heavy strips, which they heaved into the inferno and dragged through the furnace before wrestling them free, red-hot, at the far end.” Workers at the furnace are exposed to high health hazards. They lack adequate gears which would help them to protect their bodies from the dangers which the furnace represents. Poverty motivates the workers to expose themselves, but the earnings they receive does not significantly enhance their economic statuses.
The Underside of Recycling
Langewiesche expounds, “I don’t think Claire Tielens worried about such sensitivities. She told me that she had chosen her path because she wanted to fight injustice. She was a true idealist. But she did not feel reluctant to say, “The recycling of toxic waste is such a hazardous activity that you cannot leave it to a developing country to do that." Recycling is detrimental to the Indian communities because appropriate technology has not been invested in it. Accordingly, the workers in the recycling ventures are laid open to toxic substances which can be projected to cause health hazards in their lives. The communities may embrace the recycling jobs as a source of livelihood, yet they are oblivious of the toxicity which is inherent in the jobs.
