mumbai: where does the garbage go?

I have been trying to understand Mumbai's water and sanitation infrastructures. How many of us know where our water comes from, where our wastewater and garbage goes, who lives next to the immense amounts of garbage we generate, whose livelihoods are linked to it? We are so disconnected from all this thanks to the tap, the flush, pipes, the overhead water tank, the garbage bin and garbage truck, and the thousands of workers who keep these technologies working.

One piece of information I have come across is that Mumbai generates more than 6000 tonnes of garbage per day (one tonne > 2000 pounds, so imagine what 6000 tonnes of garbage means). Most of it ends up untreated at the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai's (MCGM) three garbage dumping grounds - the Deonar Disposal Site, the Mulund Disposal Site and the Gorai Disposal Site. I've been doing research in a slum settlement next to the Deonar site which is the largest of the three dumping grounds. Spread over 132 hectares, the Deonar dumping ground has been receiving Bombay's garbage since 1927! Today, it receives some 4000 tonnes of garbage each day. This garbage originates from 15 of the city's 24 municipal wards, mostly from the entire area from south Mumbai to Juhu as well as areas in central-eastern Mumbai.

Deonar dumping ground:
In the distance what you see is a HUGE pile of garbage, some two stories high

Garbage sorting and recycling: The livelihood of over 50% of this settlement's 5000 families is linked in some way or the other to the dumping ground. Men, women and children sort through the garbage, clean whatever they can, prepare it for recycling it, etc. Most of them manage to make Rs.100-150 a day.

While the dump is indeed economic sustenance for many of the settlement's families, the health effects of living next to the dump (in some cases, on the dump) and working in it are severe.