Terry Slavin travels to Bangalore to meet the waste pickers who are gaining respect and higher incomes through The Body Shop’s community trade plastic waste programme

In a desolate waste ground opposite an upmarket apartment building in the outskirts of Bangalore, women and men squat under scant cover from the boiling sun, sifting with their bare hands through mountains of rubbish discarded by the building’s residents.

It is a scene that seems far removed from smiling women in saris balancing mangoes on their heads, or farmers in Kenya harvesting tea tree fronds, the familiar faces of The Body Shop’s community trade programme, which has been going for 32 years.

Still, the Bangalore waste pickers, who are the poorest and most low-caste denizens of this city. To read on visit: http://www.ethicalco-plastic-waste-entrepreneurs