In a bid to earn some income, a group of 35 students are working at the Meme Lhakha landfill site in Thimphu.
Students, as young as 12, can be seen segregating plastic wastes at the landfill, a place which emanates foul odour that makes people reflex vomit.
Thimphu city’s entire waste, which is about 50 tons, goes to the landfill.
“I work here to earn some cash to use it for my school’s expenses,” said a 12-year-old student, Kesang Wangmo.
An 18-year-old student, Thinley Tshering said it is better to work at the dumping site than stay idle at home.
“I worked here last year too and it helped my parents save some money.”
Each student collects around 50 Kilograms of plastic waste in a day and earns Nu 4,000 a month.
The collection goes to the Green Road, a private company, which uses plastic to construct roads.
