The Waste-Pickers.

• Author: Jopp, Jessica
• Position: Poem

The Waste-Pickers --The manufacture of one computer produces 49 pounds of hazardous waste. --Women in India, Ghana, and China, sorting waste for recycling, are exposed to lead, asbestos, blood, fecal matter, carcasses, broken glass, needles, and metal. The curator and his council met to decide when they received their latest acquisition where to place the materials, present the information; where to place the women who pulled thread from the melting rubber of discarded tires, who squatted among the tons of waste, heads bent, and sorted the needles, the shards of colored glass, who squatted over flames to melt the mother boards, dismantled minute chips to sift the metals out and found a trace of gold or mineral spent, sold from the wreckage of our consuming class. One said the pickers should be exhibited in Early Fire, since they lived their lives breathing toxic flames and smoldering waste. Another said...