‘Fohor aayo’ is how most of us react to the trash collector’s shrill whistle. How many of us know their names? Would we even recognize them if we saw them when they weren’t emptying out our trash bins? Do we bother to tell them there is broken glass in one of the bags lest they cut themselves? Have we ever thanked them for cleaning up our homes for us? Khadga Bahadur, 40, has been a trash collector for 16 years. No one has said a kind word to him in all these years or inquired about how he is faring, not even during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Instead, they scold him when he doesn’t follow their orders, which is usually to collect trash from inside their compounds. Some rudely turn away, disgusted by his dirty work clothes—baggy and faded blue jeans, torn in far too many places, and a thick black jacket with a green stripe on the arms that has seen better days. “I visit almost 400 to 500 houses in a day. In most of them, people expect me to lug the trash bins out to where the vehicle is parked, empty them, and put them back. They say mean things like they are the ones who pay my salary and that I should just do my job when I ask them to bring it out themselves,” says Bahadur. “I’m usually made to feel like I’m beneath them.”

Around 4,000 laborers from 75 private companies and municipalities handle the waste Kathmandu generates on a daily basis—1,200 tons, out of which 65 percent is organic and 15-20 percent is recyclable, according to the Solid Waste Management Association of Nepal. Most of these are men who first go from door to door picking up household trash and then segregate it at various collection points.

Kathmandu’s inability and unwillingness to segregate means trash collectors like Bahadur often have to lift heavy loads as well as suffer cuts and injuries. Broken glass is thrown together with kitchen waste. Sometimes, mud, stones, wood, and other construction materials are hidden below heaps of paper or fruit and vegetable peels. “We aren’t allowed to collect mud and stones. And most people know that. But they trick us into it and our wages are cut by the companies we work for,” says Bahadur, a lump forming in his throat as he talks about how thankless and undignified his job feels at times, mostly because of people’s attitude towards them. Surendra Bhusal, 39, who has been in this line of work for a decade now, says it’s the little things that dampen his spirits—the way people won’t look at him when they are giving him instructions, the fact that many people call him ‘fohor bhai’, or how no one ever utters a simple ‘thank you’ even when he goes out of his way to empty their heavy, dripping bins and put them back inside their homes. A trash collector’s job is rife with risks. Small injuries aside, most of them suffer from long-term health issues because of exposure to different kinds of health hazards. Many are unable to afford medical treatment as their wages barely cover the costs of the basics. They have to work to survive but their job puts their lives at risk. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, many of them didn’t receive a single dose of vaccine but were compelled to work as theirs was an essential service. Naresh Majhi, a waste picker, says people who dump their trash on the roadside or on the river banks make their lives all the more difficult. In the summer months, waste quickly decomposes and gives off a foul stench. Majhi and his colleagues are often berated by the locals for not cleaning up the mess. “First, they dump it on the streets and then they are after us to clear it up,” he says, adding he requests people not to throw trash on the road and while many of them say they won’t, they soon go back on their word. “It’s a clear lack of empathy,” he says Segregating waste would make their jobs a whole lot easier, agree the trash collectors ApEx spoke to. But segregation takes time and effort and people would rather not go through the trouble, says Kiran Shrestha of Action Waste Pvt. Ltd, a waste management company in Kathmandu. It’s apparently far much simpler to dump everything together. Waste management companies had been trying to reduce the volume of waste at source much before Kathmandu Metropolitan City’s mayor Balen Shah made segregation compulsory at the beginning of this fiscal year (which, unfortunately, only lasted a couple of months). Time and again, efforts have been made to expand the lifespan of the landfill as well as to improve the working conditions of the trash collectors by urging Kathmandu residents to segregate, says Shrestha. Currently, in areas where Action Waste works, less than two percent of households segregate their trash, he adds. “The problem isn’t that people don’t know about segregating or recycling. But since there aren’t any clear policies regarding it, no one bothers with it,” he says. There was a time when Action Waste tried collecting dry and wet waste on different days, but people would invariably mix the two together. Fifty-year-old Prakash Pariyar, who has been a trash collector for 24 years, says the stench of rotting waste gives him headaches. Sometimes, he is unable to eat for days as he can’t get the sight of waste out of his mind. There are soiled pads, dirty diapers, and even dead mice in the trash he collects. When it’s all mixed with dry waste like plastic, paper, and metal, the volume is huge and difficult to manage, he says. “Sometimes when we drop some trash while transferring it into the collection vehicle, people balk at the sight of it. It’s their waste and they are disgusted by it. But they never stop to think how we feel while handling it,” says Pariyar. Worse, despite working long hours, from 5:30 in the morning to eight at night, and putting up with the many humiliations that come with the job, he doesn’t make enough to give his family a decent life. He fears how his family will survive if he falls ill and is unable to work. The company he works for won’t come to his aid, neither will the communities he frequents for trash collection. The government is oblivious to their sufferings. “Most people don’t even know our names. The thought of helping us will never occur to them,” he says. Kathmandu has always struggled with managing its trash and our houses would overflow with all the waste we create as we go about our lives, had it not been for the laborers who take care of it for us. Perhaps the least we could do to show our gratitude is to get to know their names, smile, occasionally thank them, and speak to them in a manner we would like to be spoken to. “We aren’t asking for people to respect us. We just want to be shown some basic decency,” says Bahadur.