Working with the scraps
Using hard labour and basic technology, workers at this factory on the outskirts of Kolkata transform scrap leather into fertiliser.
The labourers who carry out the crude process – involving cooking the leather offcuts in huge brick ovens – earn just under $5 a day.
A labourer walks over a heap of scrap leather.
A worker pulls a piece of leather from a pile.
He flings leather from the heap.
Workers rest on a mound of leather.
Men carry leather to be cooked in an oven.
A labourer chops scrap leather with a cleaver.
Workers prepare the material to be cooked.
Smoke rises from an oven.
A labourer pours water into a huge pan, in which the leather scraps are boiled with paddy waste.
A labourer shovels fertiliser out of a pan at the end of the cooking process.
A worker unloads the fertiliser to be dried.
Workers spread the product out to dry in the sun.
