Shajawal Works in a Plastics Scrap Yard

Shajawal (17) has been working for three years in the scrap yard. He earns two to three thousand rupees a month and works from eight in the morning till seven in the evening. He left school after second grade because the teachers beat him. He says he now realises he should have stayed in school. He feels he has no other options.

Unique identifier: GP01J9T

Type: Image

Shoot date: 14/08/2008

Locations: Asia, Karachi, Lyari, Pakistan

Credit line: © Robert Knoth / Greenpeace

Ranking: ★★★★★★ (B)

Containers

Shoot:

Toxics E-Waste Documentation in Pakistan

In the Karachi district of Lyari, hundreds of workers, including teenage children, earn their livelihoods by dismantling electronic scrap and extracting valuable components such as copper to sell. This is an insight into the personal cost of e-waste. Thousands of tons of e-waste such as discarded PCs, mobile phones and TVs, are dumped in Africa and Asia every year. Greenpeace research shows that some of this waste is exported from Europe to Pakistan.

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