E-waste management: A photo essay on urban poor families and informal environmental workers who manage, collect and recycle electronic wastes

The absence of a stricter solid waste management system has led to the accumulation of electronic waste materials in specific areas in Metro Manila wherein marginalized people live in. Aside from the most common types of garbage such as plastics and discarded food, the segregation of electronic wastes is proven to be far more difficult due to the environmental factors and health hazards that emanate from the process. As a result, it is usually the urban poor, namely children and informal garbage workers, who experience direct exposure to such circumstances. The photo essay aims to show the involvement of scavengers and informal environmental workers in electronic waste management and on what they do for a living in relation to segregating discarded electronic devices in Happy Land and Payatas, Tondo. The proponent interviewed some of the people in the aforementioned areas in Tondo regarding the transfer of e-wastes from one junk shop to another, the burning of electric wires in order to retrieve and sell the copper inside a wire, and their hopes to earn more income by being involved in the segregation of such wastes. With a collection of 25 photographs, the project was taken in an interpretive and explanatory manner in order to document the exact nature of the work involved in managing e-wastes as well as the health hazards that the urban poo go through. It is by looking through these photographs that viewers can be get a glimpse of how these people make a living out of such a hazardous process