'Haiti: Waste In Time'
This vast smoldering landscape symbolizes our failure to cope with the world's growing waste and polluted water issues.
In a 200-acre-plus dump five kilometers north of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, hundreds of men, women, and children scavenge day and night through the burning wasteland. On a good day, they earn $12 to $15 daily for recycling plastics, clothing, household items, and aluminum (for smelting). Some 5,000 tons of waste are created each day in the Port-au-Prince area.
'Waste In Time' represents Haiti's desperate struggle to lift itself from the depths of misery and corruption rampant in Haiti for decades.
The Haitian government owns the vast landfill that sits directly above the Plain Cul-De-Sac aquifer - the same water that provides drinking water for the poorest neighborhoods of Port-Au-Prince. After the devastating earthquake in 2010, which killed over 230,000 people in the Port-Au-Prince area, millions more tons of rubble were dumped at the site, further condemning the land and quickly polluting any remaining clean water in the shallow aquifer.
It took just ten years, or one solitary decade, to destroy the reservoir and all surrounding land. Now rural communities nearby struggle to find water. Up until 2010, what was a source of clean water and the fresh coastal breeze has now been transformed into a toxic, burning, stinking wasteland.
Photographing this area is a challenge. Many dump dwellers have fled the city and gang affiliations and do not want to be seen. As the Haitian National Police rarely visit here, it has become a haven for some of Port-au-Prince’s more shady characters and criminal elements.