These People Make Their Living Digging Through Garbage

REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

Here's a shocking number: The world produces 1.3 billion metric tons of garbage each year.

And that number is expected to double by 2025, according to the World Bank.

As Earth's population continues to increase (along with its trash output), the ability to effectively manage all that waste management is becoming an ever-more-urgent concern.

India, with its population of nearly 1.3 billion people, produces nearly 110,000 metric tons of solid waste every day. It's a colossal amount of garbage - and, surprisingly, it's key to the livelihood of many impoverished families, who spend their days recovering recyclable materials from India's landfills and garbage dumps to repurpose or sell.

Photographers in India captured this collection of images showing these "garbage pickers" salvaging the recyclable materials from trash dumps.