Contribution short abstract:

Using immersion into the lives of waste pickers who collect scrap copper at Czech landfills, this paper analyses their perception of toxicity vis-à-vis other kinds of hazards. I demonstrate that their indifference to toxicity is shaped by learning and perception of old age.

Contribution long abstract:

Why would anybody disregard exposure to toxicity? A straightforward explanation may be that toxicity is simply hard to grasp. A source of potential harm is invisible, requires time to develop, and its effects can be difficult to prove. Drawing on my fieldwork among the informal waste pickers at Czech landfills, I shed light on other reasons, which are contingent upon specific conditions structuring the lives of these people. I pay special attention to the practice of burning electric cords and cables to extract copper. The practice generates suffocating fumes and requires the handling of toxic ashes left behind as toxic commons of the future. It goes without saying that face masks and gloves are rarely used. Along with exposure to landfill leachate, burning e-waste is arguably one of the most toxic encounters waste pickers experience. Yet, the potential toxicity of the fumes and ashes raises little concern in comparison to other kinds of hazards: being run over by trucks, cut by sharp objects, buried under falling garbage, or breaking one’s leg in irregular terrain. These hazards, however, can be minimized by building experience and skill via everyday work at the landfill. Toxicity is different. It requires knowledge of the microworld and a certain perception of aging. Neither of which waste pickers were afforded. They come from the social milieu where formal education is not valued and concerns about health problems in old age make little sense; everybody knows that “one does not make it to retirement anyway".