THE 'RECYCLERS' OF PORT-AU-PRINCE

• Photographer
  Giles Clarke

In a 200-acre-plus dump 5 kilometers north of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, hundreds of men, women and children scavenge day and night through the burning toxic wasteland. They earn $12 to $15 a day — on a good day — for recycling plastics as well as clothing, household items and aluminum. Some 5,000 tons of waste is created each day in the Port-au-Prince area. The vast landfill is owned by the government and situated directly above the Plain Cul-De-Sac aquifer - the same water that provides drinking water for the downtown area (poorest neighborhoods) of Port-Au-Prince.